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Great  Composers  and 
Their  Work 

By 
Louis   C.   Elson 

Author  of  "  Curiosities  of  Music,"  "  European  Remi- 
niscences," "  The  Theory  of  Music,"  etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 


Boston 
L.  C.  Page  and  Company 


(Incorporated) 
Publishers 


Copyright,  i8g8 
BY  L.  C.  PAGE  AND  COMPANY 

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All  rights  reserved 


Tenth  Impression,  July,  1907 
Eleventh  Impression,  April,  1910 


(STolmtial 

Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  C.  H.  Simonds  &  Co. 
Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


Music 
Library 


PREFACE. 


THIS  work  does  not  pretend  to  give  a 
complete  presentation  of  musical  biography. 
Many  of  the  lesser  composers  who  did  not 
influence  musical  history  in  any  way  have 
been  omitted  from  its  pages,  or  dismissed 
with  a  mere  mention.  It  has  been  the 
effort  of  the  author,  however,  to  bring  to- 
gether the  lives  of  the  great  composers  in 
such  a  manner  that  the  average  reader  (with- 
out any  technical  knowledge  of  music)  may 
understand  how  their  work  aided  in  musical 
development,  and  in  what  degree  their  schools 
were  interwoven.  In  order  to  make  this  point 
more  clear,  the  chronological  order  has  not 
been  adhered  to  where  a  departure  from  it 
seemed  to  make  more  definite  the  influence 
of  a  composer. 

Louis  C.  ELSON. 
ix 


CONTENTS. 


PREFACE 'vc 

I.     PRELIMINARY  —  THE   OLD    FLEMISH 

SCHOOL ll 

II.     THE    OLD    ITALIAN     COMPOSERS  — 

PALESTRINA 24 

III.     OPERA    AND    ORATORIO  —  GLUCK  — 

BACH  —  HANDEL     ....  37 

|  IV.    HAYDN  AND  MOZART         .        .        .  66  "7 

V.     LUDWIG  VAN  BEETHOVEN.  .  99 

VI.     FRANZ  PETER  SCHUBERT  .  .128 

VII.     CHOPIN    AND    THE    MODERN    PIANO 

COMPOSERS      ...  •  154 

VIII.     MENDELSSOHN  AND  SCHUMANN         .  171 

IX.    A  BATCH  OF  OPERATIC  COMPOSERS.  197 

X.    WAGNER:  His  LIFE  AND  THEORIES.  221 

XI.    JOHANNES  BRAHMS     .  .  252 

XII.     GIUSEPPE  VERDI         .  •  262 

XIII.     OTHER     INFLUENCES     IN     MODERN 

Music  .        .        .        .275 


GREAT    COMPOSERS    AND 
THEIR  WORK. 


CHAPTER   I. 

PRELIMINARY THE    OLD     FLEMISH     SCHOOL. 

COMPOSERS,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the 
word,  could  only  come  into  being  after 
music  had  changed  from  a  very  free  art 
into  a  science  which  admitted  of  rules,  and 
which  it  was  possible  to  teach.  There  was, 
to  be  sure,  a  certain  order  of  progressions 
demanded  in  the  old  melodies  which  charmed 
the  ancient  world,  but,  as  all  the  music  was 
probably  melodic,  as  there  were  no  chords  or 
combinations  of  parts,  such  men  as  Sopho- 
cles or  Euripides,  who  set  their  tragedies 


1 2       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

to  music,  such  reformers  as  Saint  Ambrose  or 
Saint  Gregory,  who  evolved  set  progressions 
of  melody,  and  such  enthusiastic  bard-musi- 
cians as  the  old  Troubadours  or  Minne- 
singers could  scarcely  be  called  "compos- 
ers," even  though  they  were  famous  in 
music. 

It  was  a  little  before  the  year  1000  that 
the  combination  of  different  musical  parts 
into  a  harmonious  whole  began  to  be 
studied  as  a  science.  The  first  results 
were  not  exactly  what  we  should  call  har- 
monious, however.  Guido  of  Arezzo,  Hue- 
bald  of  St.  Amands,  and  a  number  of  others 
were  engaged  during  the  tenth  and  eleventh 
centuries  in  producing  some  of  the  most 
hideous  music  that  civilized  ears  were  ever 
forced  to  listen  to,  —  a  continuous  succession 
of  fourths  and  fifths. 

Probably  the  first  party  who  fairly  de- 
serves the  name  of  a  musical  composer  was 
a  Frenchman,  a  Trouvere  (as  the  Trouba- 


Preliminary — The  Old  Flemish  School.    13 

dours  of  north  France  were  called),  named 
Adam  de  la  Hale.  This  very  sensible  musi- 
cian started  out  with  a  theory  that  had  been 
enunciated  about  fifteen  hundred  years  be- 
fore his  day  (he  was  born  in  the  thirteenth 
century)  by  Aristoxenos.  The  theory  was 
that  "whatever  sounded  right  was  good 
music." 

Working  on  this  principle,  he  produced 
music  that  was  fairly  harmonious,  and  far 
in  advance  of  the  cacophony  that  had  pre- 
ceded his  efforts.  But  he  could  not  impart 
his  knowledge  to  others ;  he  had,  in  fact,  not 
a  single  rule  which  he  could  teach  to  a 
pupil ;  had  he  been  familiar  with  Tennyson, 
he  would  have  answered  those  who  sought 
his  science  with  — 

"  I  do  but  sing  because  I  must, 
And  pipe  but  as  the  linnets  sing." 

In  short,  he  was  a  "  natural  musician,"  who 
allowed  his  ear  and  good  taste  to  guide  him 


14       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

on  unknown  seas.  It  is  unpleasant  to  have 
to  record  that  this  first  composer  was  a  good 
deal  of  a  vagabond.  He  was  probably  born 
at  Arras,  and  was  known  as  "  Le  Bossu 
d' Arras  "  ("  The  hunchback  of  Arras  "),  but, 
as  he  himself  informs  us  that  he  was  not 
deformed,  we  are  forced  to  believe  that  the 
deformity  hinted  at  lay  not  in  his  physical, 
but  in  his  moral  nature.  One  of  his  musical 
works  shows  this  obliquity  ;  it  is  called  "  Le 
Jeu  d'Adam,"  and  is  a  play  (an  incipient 
opera)  founded  upon  his  matrimonial  infelic- 
ities, and  in  it  he  takes  delight  in  holding 
up  his  own  wife  to  the  ridicule  of  the  world. 
The  music  play  upon  which  his  chief  fame 
rests  is  called  "  Robin  et  Marion,"  and  is  the 
first  of  French  operas,  chronologically  speak- 
ing. It  was  probably  written  for  the  court 
of  Naples,  then  a  French  court,  and  its 
plot  is  not  very  different  from  some  of  the 
light  French  operas  of  more  modern  times. 
Robin,  a  shepherd,  loves  Marion,  a  shep- 


Preliminary  —  The  Old  Flemish  School.    15 

herdess,  but  the  lord  of  the  village  has 
seen  Marion,  and  wants  her  for  himself. 
He  therefore  gives  Robin  a  good  beating, 
and  drives  him  away.  Marion  is  more  cour- 
ageous than  her  swain,  and  when  his  lord- 
ship endeavors  to  set  her  on  his  horse  she 
scratches  and  bites  with  such  good  will  that 
he  goes  away  discomfited.  Robin  comes 
back  full  of  gasconades  of  what  he  was 
going  to  do,  but,  as  he  sees  the  noble  re- 
turning, his  boasting  suddenly  dwindles,  and 
again  he  proves  discretion  the  better  part  of 
valor  by  a  hasty  exit.  The  end  is  a  happy 
one ;  the  lord  of  the  village  conies  to  the 
conclusion  that  Marion  is  too  much  of  a 
termagant  for  him,  that  the  grapes  are  very 
sour,  and  Robin  is  permitted  to  marry  the 
woman  of  his  choice.  At  the  end,  as  in 
a  modern  opera,  the  chorus  come  in,  just 
as  they  are  wanted,  with  wedding  gifts,  fat 
geese,  sausages,  etc.,  and  the  opera  ends 
with  a  general  merrymaking.  Beyond  the 


1 6       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

opera,  and  the  few  facts  cited,  there  is  little 
known  of  this  Adam  of  musical  composition. 

He  had,  however,  put  the  leaven  into  the 
meal ;  after  his  works  music  could  hardly  go 
back  to  the  dry  succession  of  fourths  and 
fifths,  and  men  began  to  search  for  rules  for 
the  new  science  which  Jean  de  Muris,  a  doc- 
tor of  the  University  of  Paris  in  the  four- 
teenth century,  soon  called  "counterpoint," 
from  the  fact  that  "  point "  (or  note)  was 
written  against  "  point." 

England,  at  this  early  time,  seems  to  have 
produced  composers  of  much  merit,  but  they 
were  chiefly  in  the  monasteries,  and  modestly 
withheld  their  names  from  the  public.  A 
mysterious  English  figure  looms  up  at  the 
very  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century,  —  a 
man  who  won  esteem  in  continental  Europe, 
who  wrote  celebrated  compositions  (which 
have  almost  entirely  disappeared),  who  pro- 
duced a  book  on  music  (also  lost),  a  table  of 
musical  intervals  (Morley  says  "Dunstable 


Preliminary  —  The  Old  Flemish  School.    17 

made  a  musical  dunce-table"),  and  wrote  a 
geographical  tract  which  still  exists.  For 
the  rest,  we  only  know  that  this  English 
composer  was  also  a  mathematician  and  an 
astrologer.  He  died  in  1458.  Morley  (who 
wrote  in  1595)  might  truly  have  added  to  his 
play  of  words  the  fact  that  the  reputation  of 
Dunstable  was  remarkably  unstable,  for  he  is 
one  of  the  haziest  figures  among  the  early 
composers. 

We  have  now  reached  the  epoch  when 
an  entire  race  of  composers  came  upon  the 
scene.  They  arose  in  what  is  now  Belgium, 
and  formed  the  School  of  the  Netherlands, 
or  the  "  Flemish  School."  The  first  of  their 
line,  William  Dufay,  has  been  called  "The 
Father  of  Music,"  and  in  one  sense  deserves 
that  title,  since  he  was  the  first  skilful  com- 
poser. He  was  born  at  Chimay  about  the 
year  1400,  according  to  the  researches  of  the 
learned  Father  F.  X.  Haberl.  He  was  in 
Rome  about  1428,  became  canon  of  Cam- 


1 8       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

bray,  in  the  Flemish  country,  about  1450, 
and  died  there  Nov.  27,  1474.  It  is  note- 
worthy that  nearly  all  the  Flemish  composers 
seem  to  have  been  called  into  Italy  by  the 
Catholic  Church,  and  nearly  all  of  them  seem 
to  have  returned  to  their  native  country  in 
their  old  age.  This  early  school  of  composi- 
tion loved  intricacy  and  complexity;  the 
composers  treated  music  very  much  as  if 
it  had  been  mathematics,  and  their  compo- 
sitions seem  dry  and  utterly  without  emo- 
tion to  modern  ears.  Yet  they  must  have 
felt  a  degree  of  inspiration  in  working  in 
the  new  art.  Dufay  requested  in  his  last 
illness  that  after  he  had  received  extreme 
unction,  and  the  final  agony  had  set  in,  a 
choir  should  gather  around  his  bed  and  sing 
his  "Ave  Regina,"  a  proposition  •  which  he 
defeated  by  dying  suddenly  in  the  midst  of 
the  night.  It  was  sung  in  the  chapel  at 
his  obsequies,  however. 

It  would  be  next  to  impossible,  in  a  short 


Preliminary  —  The  Old  Flemish  School.     19 

work,  to  give  even  the  names  of  the  com- 
posers who  won  distinction  in  the  Flemish 
school.  John  Ockhegem  (also  spelled  "  Ock- 
enheim "),  who  was  in  the  service  of  Louis 
XL,  and  died  about  1513,  was  the  first 
teacher  of  composition  of  any  renown.  But 
the  bright  particular  star  among  the  compos- 
ers of  the  fifteenth  century  was  Josquin  Des 
Pres  (Josquin,  or  "  Jossekyn,"  being  a  Flem- 
ish diminutive  meaning  "Johnnie"),  who  died 
either  in  1515  or  in  1521.  Martin  Luther 
said  of  him,  "  Other  composers  are  ruled  by 
notes,  but  Des  Pres  rules  the  notes."  Des 
Pres  is  the  first  of  the  skilful  composers  who 
allows  something  of  emotion  to  enter  into 
his  work.  At  this  time  music  was  so  en- 
tirely intellectual  that  some  of  the  subjects 
chosen  for  treatment  would  astonish  a  mod- 
ern ;  the  genealogy  of  Christ,  for  example, 
was  set  to  music  more  than  once.  Des 
Pres  was  a  good  teacher  as  well  as  the  first 
composer  of  genius  that  the  world  possessed. 


2O       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

Orlando  di  Lasso,  was,  however,  the  cul- 
mination of  the  Flemish  school.  He  was 
born  in  1520  in  Mons,  in  Hainault,  and  his 
original  name  was  Di  Lattre,  but,  his  father 
being  convicted  of  counterfeiting  and  pub- 
licly disgraced,  he  changed  his  cognomen. 
As  a  child  he  had  a  beautiful  voice,  so  won- 
derful that  he  was  twice  kidnapped  on  account 
of  it.  In  his  twelfth  year  the  Viceroy  of 
Sicily,  Ferdinand  Gonzaga,  took  him  to  Italy 
to  have  him  trained  in  music.  At  eighteen 
he  went  to  Naples,  and  taught  music  there 
for  three  years.  He  had  afterwards  a  good 
position  in  Rome,  but  hearing  that  his  parents 
were  very  ill  he  at  once  returned  home,  only 
to  find  them  both  dead.  He  now  visited 
England  and  France,  and  then  settled  in 
Antwerp.  He  seems  to  have  been  a  most 
genial  character,  and  every  one  who  knew 
him  appears  to  have  been  fond  of  him.  He 
was  particularly  a  favorite  with  the  aristoc- 
racy, and  it  was  not  long  before  his  friend, 


Preliminary  —  The  Old  Flemish  School.    21 

Duke  Albert  V.,  of  Bavaria,  induced  him  to 
take  up  his  abode  in  Munich.  He  had  a 
large  band  of  musicians  at  his  disposal  here, 
and  was  honored  as  no  musician  had  been  up 
to  that  time. 

His  Munich  career  began  in  1557,  and  his 
fame  began  to  spread  all  over  Europe.  Every 
potentate  in  Christendom  seems  to  have  sent 
him  some  decoration  or  other  species  of 
homage.  He  received  more  honorary  titles 
than  any  musician  has  ever  carried  before  or 
since.  His  works  were  reverently  collected 
and  richly  bound.  His  2,337  compositions 
are  still  preserved  in  Munich,  and  his  seven 
Penitential  Psalms  may  be  seen  there  most 
sumptuously  encased  in  silver  and  morocco. 
In  his  later  years  he  received  a  peculiar  call 
to  Paris.  Charles  IX.  had  probably  become 
conscience-stricken  after  the  Massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew ;  he  slept  little,  and  seemed  in 
constant  mental  distress.  Some  of  his  cour- 
tiers thereupon  sent  for  Orlando  di  Lasso  to 


22       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

charm  away  his  troubles  with  beautiful 
music.  Before  the  composer  could  reach 
Paris  the  king  was  dead,  and  Di  Lasso  re- 
traced his  steps  to  Munich.  The  last  years 
of  his  life  were,  however,  very  discontented, 
for  Duke  Albert  was  dead,  and  the  old 
composer,  the  spoiled  child  of  Fortune, 
imagined  that  he  was  slighted  by  every 
one  because  there  was  no  longer  the  ex- 
aggerated homage  of  the  "good  old  times." 
He  died  in  Munich  in  1594,  and  his  epitaph 
gives  a  very  good  example  of  a  Latin  pun ; 
it  runs  — 

"  Hie  ille  est  Lassus,  lassum  qui  recreat  orbem," 

which  is  but  half  translated  by  "  Here  lies 
aweary,  he  who  a  weary  world  refreshed." 

To  illustrate  the  esteem  in  which  the  com- 
poser was  held  even  by  the  common  people, 
it  may  be  here  stated  that  the  populace  of 
Munich  believed  that  Di  Lasso's  setting  of 
"  Gustate  et  Videte  "  had  the  power  to  cause 


Preliminary  —  The  Old  Flemish  School.    23 

stormy  weather  to  clear  and  the  sun  to  shine 
through  the  clouds. 

The  Flemish  school  had  lasted  nearly  two 
centuries,  and  had  brought  forth  about  three 
hundred  composers  of  more  or  less  fame,  but 
the  last  and  greatest  of  all  these  was  Orlando 
di  Lasso. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE  OLD   ITALIAN   COMPOSERS PALESTRINA. 

THERE  was  born  in  the  fifteenth  century  a 
composer  who  was  a  connecting  link  between 
the  Flemish  school  and  the  old  Italian  school 
of  composition.  Adrian  Willaert  was  born 
in  1480  in  Bruges,  in  Flanders,  and,  as  was 
usual  with  the  Flemish  composers,  he  went 
to  Rome  as  a  young  man.  Here  he  was 
unpleasantly  surprised  by  hearing  one  of  his 
own  motettes  given  as  a  composition  of 
Josquin  des  Pres.  On  his  proving  the 
authorship,  the  papal  singers  laid  aside  the 
work  altogether,  and  Des  Pres  left  Rome  in 
a  very  disgusted  state.  He  finally  settled 
in  Venice,  and  became  the  organist  of  St. 
24 


The  Old  Italian  Composers.  25 

Mark's  Cathedral  there.  At  this  cathedral, 
and  largely  because  of  Willaert,  a  school  of 
organ  music  was  born,  the  earliest  school  of 
advanced  instrumental  music.  Willaert  had 
many  Italian  pupils,  and  in  his  later  years  a 
number  of  German  students  came  to  Venice 
to  study  the  mode  of  composition  and  of 
organ-playing  taught  there.  Willaert  was 
the  first  to  demonstrate  that  the  musical 
scale  ought  to  be  tuned  in  twelve  equal 
semitones,  a  mode  of  tuning  that  was  practi- 
cally introduced  much  later  by  Bach.  He 
died  in  1562,  leaving  behind  him  a  host 
of  talented  pupils,  among  whom  one  can 
mention  Cyprian  de  Rore,  Zarlino,  Scheldt, 
Praetorius,  Scheidemann,  Hassler,  Andrea 
Gabrieli,  and  especially  the  famous  Giovanni 
Gabrieli,  one  of  the  greatest  lights  of  the 
early  Italian  school.  All  of  these  were 
either  directly  students  with  Willaert,  or 
were  taught  by  his  pupils,  and  can,  therefore, 
be  called  disciples  of  his  school. 


26       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work, 

Meanwhile  Rome  was  not  idle.  Venice 
had  developed  the  art  of  organ-playing,  and 
had  taught  even  Germany  in  this  field  ;  Rome 
applied  herself  rather  to  the  vocal  forms. 
Costanza  Festa  was,  perhaps,  the  pioneer  of 
this  school.  He  was  not  a  very  great  com- 
poser, but  was  fortunate  in  being  the  first 
Italian  to  achieve  especial  renown  in  com- 
position. He  was  one  of  the  artificial  singers 
of  the  Pope's  choir,  was  born  in  Florence, 
and  died  in  1545. 

Now  there  comes  upon  the  scene  the  first 
really  great  composer  of  contrapuntal  music 
that  the  world  had  as  yet  produced. 

Giovanni  Pierluigi  da  Palestrina  received 
his  last  name  from  the  town  of  Palestrina, 
where  he  was  born,  probably  in  1524, 
although  there  is  still  much  controversy  as 
to  the  date  of  his  birth.  The  lad  was  of 
humble  parentage,  and  as  the  Duke  of  Alva's 
soldiers  destroyed  the  parish  records  of  Pal- 
estrina, it  is  scarcely  probable  that  the  exact 


The  Old  Italian  Composers.  27 

date  of  the  birth  of  this  first  great  composer 
of  the  world  will  ever  be  known.  He  became 
singing-master  to  the  boys  at  the  Vatican,  on 
his  arrival  in  Rome,  and  in  1544  wrote  and 
published  a  set  of  masses,  dedicated  to  Pope 
Julius  III.  This  was  a  work  which  may 
justly  be  called  epoch-making;  it  was  the 
first  great  musical  work  created  by  an  Italian 
composer,  it  heralded  the  appearance  of  a 
rival  to  the  Flemish  school,  which  had  been 
leading  music  into  a  bog  of  intricacies  and 
complexities. 

Pope  Julius,  as  a  reward,  appointed  Pales- 
trina  one  of  the  papal  singers,  a  violation  of 
one  of  the  canons  of  the  church,  since  these 
singers  were  prohibited  from  marrying,  and 
Palestrina  had  already  entered  the  bonds  of 
wedlock.  There  was  no  very  great  pay 
attached  to  the  position,  but  even  this 
stipend  was  suddenly  stopped  by  the  death 
of  Pope  Julius,  and  the  subsequent  demise  of 
Marcellus,  who  was  well-disposed  towards 


28       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work, 

Palestrina,  after  being  Pope  for  twenty-three 
days.  The  haughty  and  imperious  church- 
man, John  Peter  Carrafa,  now  became  Pope 
under  the  title  of  Paul  IV.,  and  began  a 
series  of  stringent  reforms  in  all  clerical 
matters.  Palestrina  was  at  once  dismissed, 
with  an  annuity  of  six  scudi  a  month.  It 
shows  the  great  modesty  of  this  composer 
that  he  thought  that  his  career  was  ruined 
by  the  loss  of  his  position  ;  he  was  broken- 
hearted for  a  time,  believing  that  his  depend- 
ent family  must  now  starve,  and  took  to  his 
bed  with  a  nervous  fever  that  nearly  cut 
short  his  career  at  the  very  beginning. 
The  composer  of  the  first  great  Italian 
masses  was  too  great,  however,  to  sink  into 
obscurity  because  of  any  papal  dismissal,  and 
the  same  year  (1555)  finds  him  appointed 
director  of  music  at  the  Lateran  church.  In 
1561  he  became  director  of  the  music  at 
S.  Maria  Maggiore,  wher*>  he  remained  ten 
years. 


The  Old  Italian  Composers.  29 

In  1562  Palestrina  became  the  saviour  of 
the  music  of  the  Catholic  Church.  The 
reforms  of  Paul  IV.  extended  far  beyond  the 
purification  of  his  own  choir  ;  he  began  the 
task  of  reforming  all  the  evils  that  had  crept 
into  clerical  affairs.  The  reformation  headed 
by  Luther  had  gained  enormous  headway ; 
the  reformers  were  thundering  at  the  gates 
of  the  citadel  of  the  Church  itself ;  Paul  IV. 
began  a  counter-reformation,  and  the  great 
Council  of  Trent  was  called  together  to  for- 
mulate measures  to  abolish  the  vices  that 
had  grown  like  ivy  upon  the  oak. 

The  music  of  the  Church  came  up  for 
discussion  at  the  twenty-second  sitting  of 
the  Council,  September  1 1,  1562.  Com- 
posers, especially  of  the  Flemish  school,  had  . 
displayed  their  skill  at  the  expense  of  all 
religious  feeling ;  in  those  days  the  tenor 
voice  took  the  melody,  while  the  other  voices 
supported  the  central  theme  with  most  in- 
tricate counterpoint.  To  demonstrate  their 


3O      Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 
i 

skill  the  composers  often  took  a  secular  mel- 
ody for  the  tenor  part,  sometimes  without 
even  changing  the  words.  Therefore,  one 
might  sometimes  hear  the  air  and  even  the 
•  words  of  a  drinking  song  in  the  tenor  voice, 
while  the  others  were  singing  "Kyrie  Elei- 
son,"  or  "  Gloria  in  Excelsis."  The  self-dis- 
play of  the  musicians  had  gone  so  far  that 
the  cardinals  were  disposed  to  wipe  the 
musical  progress  of  three  centuries  out  of 
existence  and  return  to  the  simplicity  of 
plain  chanting. 

A  strong  battle  ensued  between  the  icono- 
clasts and  those  bishops  who  loved  music. 
At  the  twenty-fourth  sitting  the  Council 
seemed  to  sway  towards  total  abolition  of 
counterpoint,  but  the  Emperor  Ferdinand 
suggested  that  this  was  too  radical  a  step. 
A  committee  of  eight  cardinals  was  then 
appointed  with  plenary  powers.  Fortu- 
nately,  among  these  were  two  music  lovers, 
Saint  Carlo  Borromeo  and  Vitellozzo  Vitel- 


The  Old  Italian  Composers.  3 1 

lozzi.  Eight  singers  from  the  papal  choir 
were  added  to  their  ranks,  and  the  result 
was  that  the  committee  determined  to 
put  the  matter  to  a  practical  test.  Did 
music  obscure  the  meaning  of  the  sacred 
words  ? 

In  1563  Palestrina  was  called  upon  to 
give  a  practical  answer  to  this  question  by 
writing  a  specimen  of  contrapuntal  work 
properly  wedded  to  the  words  of  the  mass. 
Ever  modest  and  self  -  distrustful,  he  sent 
three  masses  to  the  committee  of  the  Coun- 
cil. One  of  these  was  the  ever -famous 
"  Mass  of  Pope  Marcellus."  This  was  per- 
formed at  the  palace  of  Cardinal  Vitellozzi, 
and  afterwards  at  the  Pope's  chapel,  before 
Pius  IV.  The  Pope  was  in  ecstasy.  "  It 
must  be  such  music  that  the  angels  sing  in 
the  new  Jerusalem,"  he  cried ;  contrapuntal 
music  was  proved  to  be  a  help  and  not  a 
hindrance  to  religious  words.  The  mass 
was  ordered  to  be  inscribed  in  the  choral 


32       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

books  in  notes  of  twice  the  usual  size,  but 
pecuniary  rewards  did  not  follow.1 

Palestrina  soon  wrote  another  set  of 
masses,  and  dedicated  them  to  the  Spanish 
monarch,  Philip  II. ;  the  great  king  sent  him 
as  return  —  his  thanks  ! 

The  Pope  now  appointed  Palestrina  "  Com- 
poser to  the  Pontifical  Choir,"  with  a  raise 
of  salary  from  six  to  nine  dollars  per  month ; 
prosperity  seemed  ever  to  deny  her  smiles 
to  this  composer,  while  every  honor  and 
benefit  was  showered  upon  his  only  possi- 
ble rival,  —  Di  Lasso. 

Yet  one  may  doubt  whether  actual  pov- 
erty harassed  the  composer,  as  some  writers 
would  have  us  believe ;  his  wife  was  said  to 
be  well-to-do,  and  he  had  the  constant  friend- 
ship of  great  cardinals,  such  as  Vitellozzi 
and  Borromeo,  while  the  founder  of  oratorio, 
St.  Philip  Neri,  was  his  intimate  companion. 

1  Although  Ambros  has  doubted  the  story  of  the 
"  Mass  of  Pope  Marcellus,"  the  evidence  supporting 
the  above  story  is  overwhelming. 


The  Old  Italian  Composers.  33 

Nor  were  moments  of  great  triumph  lack- 
ing; in  1575  the  citizens  of  the  town  of 
Palestrina  celebrated  his  jubilee,  and  en- 
tered Rome  singing  some  of  his  compo- 
sitions, while  banquets  and  speeches  of 
congratulation  and  of  eulogy  were  show- 
ered upon  the  happy  musician. 

His  chief  sorrows  were  the  deaths  of  his 
boys  after  he  had  trained  them  in  music. 
The  one  son  who  outlived  him  was  an  un- 
filial  wretch,  who  cared  little  for  his  father's 
glory. 

In  his  later  years  Palestrina  was  appointed 
musical  director  to  Cardinal  Aldobrandini, 
and  leader  of  the  choir  of  St.  Peter's.  Jan- 
uary, 1594,  saw  the  publication  of  his  last 
work,  a  set  of  thirty  "  Spiritual  Madrigals," 
in  praise  of  the  Holy  Virgin.  He  died 
a  month  later.  He  wanted  other  of  his 
works  published  "for  the  Glory  of  God," 
but  his  careless  son  did  not  carry  out  his 
wishes. 


34       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

With  Palestrina  music  was  religion ;  he 
composed  in  a  most  devout  spirit,  and  kept 
to  the  old  church  modes  as  if  they  were  his 
creed.  Mendelssohn  held  the  "Improperia" 
(the  reproaches  of  Christ  to  his  persecutors) 
to  be  Palestrina's  finest  work,  but  the  "Mass 
of  Pope  Marcellus  "  may  be  regarded  as  his 
most  skilful.  There  is  considerable  differ- 
ence between  the  compositions  of  his  first 
years  and  those  of  his  later  life.  At  first 
he  copied  the  abstruse  complexities  of  the 
Flemings,  then  he  achieved  a  broader  choral 
style,  but  in  his  riper  years  he  combined 
great  dignity  with  a  florid  treatment  that  was 
much  less  affected  than  the  works  of  the 
Flemish  school. 

There  were  plenty  of  eulogies  heaped 
upon  him  after  he  was  dead.  "  The  Light 
and  Glory  of  Music,"  "The  Prince  of  Music," 
"  The  Father  of  Music,"  were  a  few  of  the 
epithets  used  on  his  tomb  and  by  his  fu- 
neral orators.  A.  D.  1594  was  an  epoch  year 


The  Old  Italian  Composers.  35 

in  music,  for  the  Flemish  school  came  to  its 
end  with  the  death  of  Di  Lasso,  the  early 
Italian  school  reached  its  limit  with  the  de- 
cease of  Palestrina,  and  the  first  opera, 
"  Dafne,"  was  composed ;  a  new  school  of 
music  had  arisen  upon  the  ruins  of  the  old. 
Henceforth,  in  this  little  volume  it  will  be 
impossible  to  speak  of  all  the  various  striv- 
ings, reforms,  and  attainments  which  took 
place  during  the  evolution  of  the  great  mod- 
ern style  of  composition,  and  we  must  limit 
ourselves  to  recording  the  chief  deeds  of  the 
greatest  lights  in  the  musical  firmament. 
But  there  were  two  chief  religious  lights  in 
the  entire  galaxy,  both  writing  from  deep 
religious  impulse,  both  virtuous,  both  poor, 
both  not  fully  appreciated  until  they  had 
been  placed  under  the  sod.  One  was  a 
Catholic,  the  other  a  Protestant.  The  Cath- 
olic Church  has  canonized  a  musical  cardinal, 
Saint  Carlo  Borromeo,  and  the  founder  of 
oratorio,  Saint  Philip  Neri,  but  there  is  not 


36      Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

yet  a  full-fledged  composer  among  the  saints. 
Among  the  great  composers,  however,  it 
may  be  difficult  to  find  many  good  or  holy 
enough  for  this  honor ;  but  Bach  (who  can- 
not be  sainted  because  of  his  faith)  and 
Palestrina  would  fulfil  nearly  all  the  require- 
ments of  proper  sainthood. 


CHAPTER  III. 

OPERA  AND  ORATORIO GLUCK BACH  — • 

HANDEL. 

WITH  the  death  of  Palestrina  and  Di 
Lasso  there  came  a  great  change  in  music ; 
the  art,  which  had  been  growing  more  and 
more  complex,  suddenly  was  simplified,  emo- 
tional expression  triumphed  over  intellectu- 
ality, and  the  earliest  days  of  operatic 
composition  represent  the  reign  of  the  ama- 
teur. Let  no  one  underestimate  the  value 
of  the  amateur  in  art  !  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  any  of  the  skilled  composers  of  the 
Flemish  or  of  the  old  Italian  school  could 
ever  have  brought  forth  what  was  evolved 
by  Count  Vernio,  Vincenzo  Galileo,  Peri, 
Caccini,  and  the  rest  of  the  body  of  music- 
37 


38       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

lovers,  who,  under  the  title  of  the  "  Came- 
rati,"  endeavored  to  bring  back  a  form  of  art 
akin  to  the  old  Greek  tragedies,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  bringing  forth  something  better, 
calling  their  new  musico-dramatic  invention 
"  Opera." 

The  world  was  waiting  for  just  such  an 
emotional  expression  in  music,  and  the  new 
school  spread  like  wild-fire  to  Germany  and 
England.  It  was  not  long  before  skilful 
composers  gave  their  adhesion  to  the  new 
style  of  musical  construction,  and  such  men 
as  Monteverde,  Cavalli,  Alessandro  Scarlatti, 
Pergolesi,  and  others,  added  learning  to  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  early  stages  of  opera.  In 
France,  under  the  "grand  monarque,"  Louis 
XIV.,  and  with  the  assistance  of  the  great 
Moliere,  Lulli  was  founding  a  separate  school 
of  light  opera ;  in  England,  Henry  Purcell, 
the  greatest  composer  that  Great  Britain 
ever  possessed,  was  building  a  school  of 
opera  on  the  Italian  models  ;  in  Germany 


CHRISTOPH    WILLIBALD    VON    GLUCK. 


Opera  and  Oratorio.  39 

Reinhardt  Keiser  was  establishing  at  Ham- 
burg a  short-lived  German  opera. 

Such  sudden  changes  in  art  generally  go 
too  far,  and  it  was  not  unnatural  to  find  the 
new  composers  forgetting  the  claims  of 
poetry  in  their  enthusiasm  for  music  ;  the 
result  was  that  the  librettos  of  the  operas 
began  to  be  very  puerile,  and  the  music  by 
no  means  always  represented  the  meaning  of 
the  words.  The  new  school  needed  a  re- 
former ;  after  Italian  opera  had  ruled  the 
world  for  more  than  a  century  and  a  half 
the  reformer  came. 

GLUCK. 

Christoph  Willibald  Gluck  was  born  July 
2,  1714,  at  Weidenwang,  in  Bohemia.  As  a 
boy  he  studied  at  the  Jesuit  college  in  Kom- 
matau,  and  finally  at  Prague,  where  he  also 
taught  violin,  violoncello,  and  singing.  Now 
our  rolling-stone  passes  to  Milan,  where  he 
had  the  benefit  of  Sammartini's  instruction, 


40       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

and  then  goes  to  London,  where  he  writes 
his  first  opera.  This  opera  could  not  have 
been  a  very  brilliant  one,  for  Handel,  then  in 
England,  said  of  its  composer,  "  He  knows 
no  more  of  counterpoint  than  my  cook ! " 
Hamburg,  Dresden,  and  Vienna  next  saw  the 
young  musician,  the  last-named  city,  where 
he  had  dwelt  before,  witnessing  the  evolution 
of  his  first  theories  of  operatic  reform. 
These  reforms  can  be  summed  up  in  two 
chief  demands  :  first,  that  music  in  opera 
should  always  represent  the  ideas  expressed 
by  the  poet ;  and,  second,  that  the  orchestral 
accompaniment  should  be  more  than  merely 
a  support  to  the  voices,  and  should  add  its 
colors  to  the  picture  which  poet  and  musi- 
cian were  portraying.  Naturally  this  in- 
volved a  higher  species  of  libretto  than  had 
been  in  vogue  before,  and  operatic  poetry 
became  much  more  powerful  because  of  the 
reforms  of  Gluck. 

Almost  every  operatic  reform  rests  in  some 


Opera  and  Oratorio.  41 

degree  upon  the  dramatic  ideas  of  the  old 
Greeks  as  represented  in  their  tragedies 
(which  were  sung  or  chanted),  and  Gluck 
used  Greek  subjects  for  almost  all  of  his 
important  operas.  He  was  fortunate  in  find- 
ing a  poet  who  could  collaborate  heartily 
with  him,  and  Raniero  di  Calzabigi  deserves 
a  share  of  the  credit  which  is  awarded  to  the 
the  composer.  The  opera  of  "Orpheus," 
which  still  holds  the  stage,  was  the  first  out- 
come of  the  reformer's  theories. 

There  were  plenty  of  attacks  on  the  new 
school,  and  this  eighteenth-century  Wagner 
was  obliged  to  defend  and  explain  by  pamphlet 
after  pamphlet,  very  much  as  the  Bayreuth 
reformer  did  in  our  own  time.  Fortune,  how- 
ever, seemed  always  to  favor  him,  for  when 
he  subsequently  went  to  Paris,  the  queen 
herself  (Marie  Antoinette)  became  his  pupil, 
and,  naturally,  one  of  the  loyal  supporters 
of  the  new  school.  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau 
also  became  an  early  convert,  and  fought  for 


42       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

the  operatic  reform ;  but  there  were  still 
enemies  enough  to  make  the  battle  an  inter- 
esting one.  There  were  plenty  who  believed 
that  if  music  were  melodic  and  pleasing,  it 
had  fulfilled  its  entire  function,  and  not  only 
was  there  a  war  of  squib,  caricature,  and 
pamphlet,  but  there  were  numerous  duels 
fought  between  the  adherents  of  the  old 
school  and  the  new. 

At  last  the  combat  took  on  a  practical 
phase ;  there  was  an  Italian,  Nicolo  Piccini, 
in  Paris,  who  was  a  perfect  representative  of 
the  school  of  mellifluous  (and  dramatically 
meaningless)  Italian  tune-writing,  and  it  was 
suggested  that  the  two  composers  prove  the 
merits  of  their  respective  systems  by  setting 
the  same  subject  to  music.  "  Iphigenia  in 
Tauris  "  was  the  topic  selected,  and,  in  1781, 
in  Paris,  this  opera,  as  set  by  Gluck  and  by 
Piccini,  was  performed  on  alternate  nights. 
The  triumph  of  the  dramatic  school  was  im- 
mediate and  overwhelming ;  the  very  singers 


Opera  and  Oratorio.  43 

became  ashamed  of  the  merely  melodic  set- 
ting, and,  finally,  the  prima  donna  appear- 
ing upon  the  stage,  evidently  under  the 
influence  of  copious  libations,  a  Parisian  wit 
cried  out,  "  This  is  not  '  Iphigenia  in 
Tauris,'  it  is  Iphigenia  in  Champagne ! "  and 
the  shaft  of  sarcasm  gave  the  finishing  blow 
to  the  school  of  mere  melody  in  opera. 

Gluck  died  in  1787,  and  his  works  suf- 
fered a  temporary  eclipse  because  of  the 
baleful  genius  of  Rossini,  who  soon  followed 
him.  The  Germans  readily  gave  their  ad- 
hesion to  the  principles  established  by  Gluck ; 
but  the  brilliancy  of  the  vocal  writing  of 
Rossini  set  back  the  hands  of  the  clock  of 
operatic  progress  by  about  half  a  century. 
The  world  was  obliged  to  wait  for  another 
reformer  in  the  same  field  who  should  reap 
the  harvest  which  Gluck  had  first  sown,  but 
the  seed  had  been  planted  and  could  not  be 
choked  by  any  subsequent  weeds.  Gluck 
had  made  no  concessions  to  popular  taste,  he 


44       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

had  followed  an  ideal,  and  had  brought  forth 
the  first  true  dramatic  operas ;  in  his  works 
poetry  and  music  had  for  the  first  time  been 
fittingly  wedded ;  the  future  opera  now  had 
a  firm  foundation  whereon  to  build  its  loftier 
edifice. 

The  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  was  a  period  of 
renascence  in  music ;  not  only  the  opera 
sprang  into  being,  but  its  sacred  counterpart, 
the  oratorio,  was  evolved  during  this  impor- 
tant epoch.  Saint  Philip  Neri,  who  has 
already  been  mentioned  in  connection  with 
Palestrina,  was  the  zealous  founder  of  the 
religious  opera,  for  such  the  oratorio  was  in 
its  earliest  stages,  having  costumes,  acting, 
and  stage  effects  as  the  opera  has  to-day. 
Neri  began  this  style  of  performance  as  an 
elaboration  of  the  old  "miracle-plays,"  with 
which  the  Church  used  to  amuse  and  in- 
struct its  humbler  adherents,  and  once  a 
week,  generally  Friday  evenings,  there  was 


Opera  and  Oratorio.  45 

given  in  his  church  of  Santa  Maria  di  Valli- 
cella,  a  sacred  performance  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  public.  As  these  plays  took 
place  in  the  oratory  of  the  church,  they 
were  soon  called  "  Oratorios."  Saint  Philip 
Neri  died  in  1595,  after  he  hjad  planted 
this  good  seed.  The  standard  was  immedi- 
ately taken  by  a  very  talented  musician  and 
composer,  Emilio  del  Cavaliere,  who  brought 
forth  a  much  more  ambitious  work  in  this 
school,  called  "The  Representation  of  the 
Soul  and  the  Body,"  which  was  given  in 
Rome  (in  Neri's  own  church)  in  1600,  and 
has  a  good  right  to  be  classed  with  the 
earliest  operas.  The  first  opera,  "  Dafne," 
by  Jacopo  Peri  and  his  companions,  was 
performed  in  1594,  six  years  earlier  than 
this  oratorio;  but  Cavaliere' s  work  was  much 
more  advanced  than  that  of  the  operatic  com- 
poser of  this  early  epoch.  Soon  after  Cava- 
liere's  establishment  of  this  sacred  school, 
many  great  composers  gave  their  efforts  in 


46       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

the  same  direction,  but  with  Carissimi  (1604- 
1680)  a  higher  level  was  reached,  the  drama- 
tic action  began  to  be  omitted,  and  oratorio, 
as  we  understand  it  to-day,  was  established. 
Alessandro  Scarlatti,  who  had  elevated  opera, 
now  did  the  same  for  oratorio,  and  Stradella 
also  wrote  in  the  sacred  school,  while  in 
Germany,  Schuetz,  Keiser,  and  many  others 
began  to  popularize  the  oratorio. 

BACH. 

There  were  two  men  born  in  the  same 
year  (1685)  in  Germany,  who  were  to  lift 
the  sacred  school  to  its  highest  possible  ex- 
pression. Bach  and  Handel  are  too  often 
spoken  of  in  musical  history  as  if  they  were 
the  Siamese  twins  of  music.  In  many  re- 
spects they  were  opposites.  The  points  of 
resemblance  are  only  these :  Handel  was 
born  February  23d,  Bach,  March  2ist,  both 
in  1685  ;  both  were  German;  both  left  great 
religious  works  to  the  musical  world ;  both 


Opera  and  Oratorio.  47 

were  fine  organists,  and  both  were  stricken 
blind  in  their  later  years.  Here,  however, 
resemblance  ends,  for  Bach  was  not  a  dra- 
matic composer,  while  Handel  was  the  most 
dramatic  musician  of  his  time ;  Bach  leaned 
towards  the  old  intellectual  school,  while 
Handel  was  essentially  modern  in  his  effects. 
Bach  was  twice  married,  and  had  an  enor- 
mous family,  while  Handel  remained  a  bach- 
elor all  his  days  ;  Bach  was  poor,  Handel 
became  rich  ;  Bach  was  retiring  and  lived  a 
sequestered  life,  while  Handel  loved  public- 
ity ;  and  one  might  carry  this  list  of  contra- 
ries much  further.  It  is  also  a  mistake  to 
consider  these  composers  as  peers,  for  Han- 
del's reputation  rests  chiefly  upon  his  "  Mes- 
siah," while  one  might  obliterate  the  great 
"  Passion  Music,"  and  Bach  would'  still  re- 
main the  leading  composer  of  the  world  in 
contrapuntal  forms. 

John  Sebastian  Bach  came  of  a  family  that 
had  consisted  of  musicians  for  many  genera- 


48       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

tions.  Veit  Bach,  who  was  born  about  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  seems  to 
have  been  the  founder  of  the  long  line  of 
musicians  which  constitute  the  Bach  family. 
He  was  chased  from  Germany  to  Hungary 
and  back  again  on  account  of  his  Protestant 
faith,  and  this  sturdy  Protestantism  became 
characteristic  of  all  the  musical  Bachs  of 
later  times.  Bach's  father  and  uncle  were 
excellent  musicians,  and  were  also  cele- 
brated as  being  such  a  phenomenal  pair  of 
twins  that  their  own  wives  could  not  easily 
tell  them  apart !  The  great  line  of  Bachs, 
the  most  honorable  lineage  in  music,  became 
extinct  as  late  as  1846,  when  Wilhelm  F.  E. 
Bach  died. 

Bach's  parents  died  during  his  earliest 
years,  and  the  orphan  was  obliged  to  live 
with  his  brother,  John  Christopher  Bach, 
an  organist  in  a  small  village  near  Weimar. 
This  brother  gave  him  instruction  in  music, 
but  seems  to  have  been  a  hard  and  stern 


Opera  and  Oratorio.  49 

man.  The  young  Bach  had  a  great  desire 
to  play  certain  musical  manuscripts  which 
his  brother  owned,  but  was  forbidden  their 
use ;  by  stealthy  work  at  copying  on  moon- 
light nights  (for  he  had  no  candle),  he  man- 
aged to  transcribe  the  entire  set,  only  to 
have  them  discovered  and  confiscated  by  his 
relative  a  short  time  after.  This  moonlight 
labor  bore  bad  fruit  later,  for  the  blindness 
which  came  upon  Bach  in  later  life  may  be 
at  least  partially  ascribed  to  this  cause. 

The  possession  of  a  fine  soprano  voice 
lifted  the  lad  somewhat  above  the  bitterness 
of  extreme  poverty,  and  soon  brought  him  a 
choir  position  in  Liineberg,  where  he  was 
enabled  to  pursue  his  musical  studies  with 
less  harshness  and  to  better  advantage. 
When  his  voice  changed  he  was  able  to 
obtain  a  position  as  violinist  in  the  duke's 
orchestra  in  the  city  of  Weimar.  In  1704 
he  won  a  post  much  more  to  his  liking,  for 
he  was  appointed  organist  at  Arnstadt 


50       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

Bach  always  enjoyed  playing  the  organ, 
and,  by  his  improvisations  and  his  composi- 
tions, he  very  soon  became  celebrated  far 
beyond  the  limits  of  his  town,  and  even  was 
known  outside  of  the  duchy  of  Weimar. 
Many  cities  sought  to  obtain  him  as  organist, 
and,  in  1707,  in  his  twenty-second  year,  we 
find  him  organist  at  Miilhausen.  Here  he 
married  a  distant  relative,  of  the  same  family 
name,  an  estimable  lady  who  bore  him  seven 
children.  It  is  noticeable  that  the  children 
of  this  first  marriage  became  the  most  mu- 
sically gifted  of  all  the  numerous  progeny  of 
Bach,  the  great  William  Friedemann  Bach 
and  Carl  Philipp  Emanuel  Bach  being  among 
them.  Bach's  wife  died  very  suddenly,  dur- 
ing a  short  tour  undertaken  by  the  com- 
poser, who  left  her  in  good  health  and  found 
her  buried  on  his  return.  About  eighteen 
months  later,  Bach  married  a  second  time, 
this  spouse  being  a  fine  soprano  singer.  He 
had  thirteen  children  by  his  second  wite, 


Opera  and  Oratorio.  5 1 

thus  having  a  family  of  twenty  children,  who 
ranged  all  the  way  from  idiocy  (David  Bach) 
to  genius  (William  Friedemann  Bach).  With 
such  a  family,  and  with  the  slender  income 
of  the  musician  in  those  days,  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  Bach  remained  poor  all  his 
days,  but  it  is  none  the  less  a  disgrace  to  the 
city  of  Leipzig,  that  when  the  old  musician 
died,  after  many  years  of  service  to  the 
municipality,  his  wife  was  suffered  to  go  to 
the  poorhouse  and  to  end  her  days  there. 

In  1714  Bach  was  appointed  director  of 
the  court  concerts  in  Weimar,  an  important 
position,  but  with  so  small  a  salary  that  he 
very  soon  endeavored  to  find  a  more  lucrative 
post.  It  seems  strange  that  he  was  unsuc- 
cessful, in  his  applications  to  Hamburg  and 
to  Halle,  for  the  post  of  city  organist,  and 
all  through  his  life  was  doomed  to  see  infe- 
rior musicians  win  the  positions  which  would 
have  lifted  him  above  pecuniary  care.  This, 
however,  never  soured  the  temper  of  the 


5  2       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

patriarchal  composer,  who  seems  only  to 
have  become  angry  when  his  beloved  art 
was  treated  in  a  flippant  manner.  Among  all 
the  great  composers  only  Palestrina  can  be 
compared  to  Bach  in  purity  of  life,  freedom 
from  envy,  and  unselfish  devotion  to  art. 

Probably  the  pleasantest  position  that 
Bach  ever  obtained  was  that  of  kapell- 
meister to  Prince  Leopold  of  Anhalt-Kothen, 
which  he  held  for  six  years  before  settling  in 
Leipzig. 

As  an  improviser  at  clavichord  (the  prede- 
cessor of  the  piano)  or  at  organ,  Bach,  prob- 
ably, had  no  equal.  It  was  said  that  he 
could  evolve  a  fugue  as  readily  as  others 
would  bring  forth  a  free  improvisation.  He 
proved  this  publicly,  in  1717,  before  the 
king  of  Saxony,  when,  after  a  preliminary 
6out,  Marchand,  the  great  French  virtuoso, 
ran  away,  rather  than  stand  the  ordeal  of 
a  regular  competition  with  him. 

In   1723  he  received  the  most  important 


Opera  and  Oratorio.  5  3 

appointment  of  his  life,  for  he  was  made 
cantor  and  musical  director  of  the  Thomas 
School,  connected  with  the  Thomas  Church, 
in  Leipzig.  He  held  this  position  until  his 
death,  twenty-seven  years  later.  The  life  of 
the  composer  now  became  an  uneventful 
one.  He  lived  like  an  ancient  patriarch, 
surrounded  by  his  numerous  family,  enjoy- 
ing a  modest  income,  composing  every  day, 
teaching,  directing,  a  model  of  a  musician 
working  in  art  for  art's  sake.  A  few  hon- 
orary titles  were  awarded  him  by  some  ap- 
preciative noblemen ;  he  was  held  by  many 
of  his  admirers  to  be  the  greatest  musician 
of  his  day ;  but  his  modest  income  and  his 
sequestered  position  were  unchanged  by 
these  empty  compliments. 

In  1747  there  was  a  striking  proof  given 
of  the  estimation  in  which  he  was  held  by 
connoisseurs.  Frederick  the  Great  was  an 
enthusiastic  flute  player,  and  had  engaged 
the  second  son  of  Bach  (Philipp  Emanuel 


54      Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

Bach)  as  his  accompanist.  The  monarch 
had  heard  of  the  great  musical  powers  of 
Bach,  and  constantly  pleaded  with  the  son 
that  his  father  might  make  a  visit  to  the 
court.  At  last  the  old  man,  now  over  sixty, 
made  the  journey.  The  king  was  at  supper 
when  the  news  was  brought  of  the  arrival  of 
the  wagon  with  its  occupant ;  springing  from 
the  table  the  monarch  broke  up  the  meal 
with  the  words,  "  Gentlemen,  old  Bach  is 
here  !  "  and  took  him,  weary  as  he  was  with 
travel,  through  the  palace.  He  played  upon 
the  king's  pianos,  but  said  that  he  preferred 
the  clavichord,  and  considered  the  piano 
fitted  only  for  light  rondos  or  variations  ;  he 
improvised  a  four-voiced  fugue  upon  a  sub- 
ject given  by  Frederick  himself,  and,  subse- 
quently, elaborated  it  into  a  six-voiced  fugue, 
now  existing  in  his  "Art  of  Fugue."  It  is 
said  that  the  king  sent  Bach  a  sum  of 
money  after  this  visit,  which  was  embezzled 
before  it  reached  the  poor  composer. 


Opera  and  Oratorio,  5  5 

The  journey  laid  the  foundation  of  Bach's 
last  illness.  He  was  old  and  feeble  when  he 
undertook  the  trip,  and  the  excitement  must 
have  been  very  enervating  to  him.  He  laid 
another  heavy  task  upon  his  eyesight  by 
engraving  (upon  copper  plates)  his  own 
"Art  of  Fugue,"  as  the  only  means  of 
giving  it  to  the  world.  Blindness  came 
upon  him  in  spite  of  two  operations  upon 
his  eyes.  A  six  months'  illness  followed, 
when  his  sight  suddenly  returned,  but  he 
became  frenzied  with  such  joy  at  this  that 
a  fit  of  apoplexy  followed,  and  the  composer 
suddenly  expired,  at  half  past  eight  on  the 
evening  of  July  28,  1750. 

The  family  was  obliged  by  poverty  to 
disperse  after  his  death,  and  some  of  them 
suffered  the  direst  straits  in  after  years,  for 
Germany  did  not  fully  recognize  the  great- 
ness of  Bach  until  more  than  a  half  century 
later. 

Bach's   greatness   does   not   rest   upon  a 


56      Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

single  masterwork ;  he  has  many  and  diverse 
claims  upon  our  recognition.  He  has  given 
the  world  a  most  sublime  work  in  his  "  Pas- 
sion Music "  according  to  Saint  Matthew ; 
he  has  left  the -most  perfect  organ  composi- 
tions the  world  can  ever  hope  to  possess  ;  he 
has  established,  by  means  of  the  "  Well- 
tempered  Clavichord,"  the  division  of  the 
scale  into  twelve  equal  semitones  ;  he  may 
justly  be  called  "The  Father  of  Modula- 
tion," for  he  first  practically  established  free 
modulation  ;  and  he  was  the  man  who  recon- 
ciled the  old  church  modes,  the  music  of  the 
Flemish  and  the  old  Italian  schools,  with 
the  modern  modes  of  treatment ;  he  was 
the  most  masterly  mind  that  ever  appeared 
in  music ;  he  was  truly  religious,  and  bore 
afflictions  and  lack  of  due  appreciation  with 
noble  resignation ;  and,  in  these  modern 
days,  when  music  is  becoming  a  formless 
frenzy,  when  shape,  melody,  regular  pro- 
gression are  all  thrown  to  the  winds,  we 


GEORG    FRIEDRICH    HANDEL 


Opera  and  Oratorio  57 

have  a  sheet  anchor  which  may  help  us  to 
weather  the  storm,  and  that  anchor  is  John 
Sebastian  Bach. 

HANDEL. 

George  Frederick  Handel  was  Bach's  great- 
est contemporary.  He  was  born  in  Halle 
(as  already  stated)  on  February  23,  1685. 
An  English  history  succinctly  states  that 
"  Handel's  father  was  sixty-three  years  old 
when  he  was  born,"  which  would  go  to 
prove  that  Handel's  male  parent  was  a  most 
remarkable  baby,  but  the  reader  can  readily 
grasp  the  meaning  of  the  awkward  state- 
ment. The  boy  received  a  good  musical 
training  from  Zachau,  in  Halle,  which  added 
solid  learning  to  his  natural  skill  in  impro- 
visation. In  his  childhood  a  fortunate  in- 
cident, which,  at  the  same  time,  proves 
Handel's  obstinate  character,  brought  his 
musical  abilities  into  proper  notice  ;  his 
father  was  to  make  a  journey  to  visit  the 


58       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

Duke  of  Saxe-Weissenfels,  and  had  refused 
his  seven-year-old  son  permission  to  accom- 
pany him,  although  the  lad  pleaded  hard  to 
go.  After  the  carriage  had  proceeded  some 
distance,  it  was  found  that  the  lad  had  run 
after  the  coach,  and  was  clinging  to  the  rear 
of  the  vehicle.  It  was  then  too  late  to  re- 
turn, and,  after  a  scolding,  he  was  allowed  to 
continue  the  journey.  While  at  the  palace 
of  the  duke,  the  boy,  who  had  been  secretly 
applying  himself  to  spinet-playing,  attracted 
the  attention  of  the  nobleman  and  his  friends, 
who  strenuously  advised  the  father  to  allow 
him  to  continue  his  studies  in  music.  It 
was  after  this  event  that  Zachau  was  en- 
gaged as  his  teacher. 

When  a  youth  Handel  formed  a  close  com- 
panionship with  a  young  musician,  four  years 
his  senior,  named  Mattheson.  This  acquaint- 
ance was  of  practical  advantage  to  Handel, 
for  Mattheson  was  of  good  family  and  already 
well-known  in  Hamburg,  where,  after  the 


Opera  and  Oratorio.  59 

death  of  his  father,  Handel  sought  to  provide 
subsistence  for  himself  and  his  mother.  In 
1703  the  friends  went  together  to  Liibeck, 
to  compete  in  generous  rivalry  for  the  post 
of  city  organist,  which  the  eminent  Buxte- 
hude  was  about  to  vacate.  They  were 
amazed,  however,  to  learn  that  the  old  organ- 
ist made  one  primary  condition,  —  the  suc- 
cessful contestant  was  to  marry  his  daughter. 
After  looking  at  the  lady,  they  decided  not 
to  enter  into  the  contest ! 

At  this  time  the  city  of  Hamburg  was 
making  a  strange  attempt  to  establish  Ger- 
man opera  :  a  brilliant,  but  decidedly  care- 
less, composer  named  Reinhardt  Keiser  was 
furnishing  operas,  with  fireworks,  proces- 
sions, and  with  three  or  four  languages 
mingled  in  the  representation,  and  was 
making  a  temporary  success  only  endan- 
gered by  most  spendthrifty  habits.  Know- 
ing the  jealous  character  of  the  average 
composer,  Handel  offered  his  services  in  the 


60      Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

orchestra  of  the  opera  company,  having, 
seemingly,  just  enough  ability  to  play  second 
violin,  and  nothing  more.  But  one  day 
when  Keiser  had  suddenly  run  away  from 
his  creditors,  and  the  orchestra  was  without 
a  head,  our  second  violinist  suggested  that 
he  might  be  able  to  direct  the  scheme  as 
well  as  play  a  subordinate  part.  For  a  time 
the  new  arrangement  worked  well,  but  a 
sudden  quarrel  with  Mattheson  at  this  period 
nearly  ended  the  career  of  the  genius  al- 
together. His  refusal  to  allow  Mattheson  to 
conduct  part  of  his  own  opera  so  enraged 
that  composer,  that,  at  the  end  of  the  opera, 
he  gave  Handel  a  box  on  the  ear.  Instantly 
drawing  their  swords,  they  began  a  duel, 
which  ended  by  Mattheson' s  weapon  break- 
ing against  a  large  button  on  Handel's  coat, 
which,  fortunately,  prevented  it  from  going 
through  his  body.  The  quarrel  subsided 
almost  as  quickly  as  it  had  arisen. 

After  a  few  years  of  activity  as  composer 


Opera  and  Oratorio.  6l 

and  director  to  the  Hamburg  opera,  Handel, 
in  1706,  left  Germany  for  Italy,  where  he 
acquired  that  ability  in  Italian  operatic  com- 
position and  that  love  of  dramatic  effect 
which  was  to  help  him,  after  many  years, 
in  the  production  of  his  masterpieces. 

On  his  return  to  Germany  he  entered  the 
service  of  George,  Elector  of  Hanover,  but 
subsequently  applied  for  a  furlough  in  order 
that  he  might  pay  a  short  visit  to  England. 
Once  in  England,  however,  he  found  such  an 
amount  of  appreciation  that  he  decided  not 
to  return  to  his  Hanoverian  master.  One 
can  imagine  his  dismay  when,  on  the  death 
of  Queen  Anne,  the  Hanoverian  succession 
was  effected,  and  his  master  from  across  seas 
became  King  of  England.  Handel  thought 
that  his  career  was  ruined,  but  an  ingenious 
expedient  of  Baron  Kilmanseck  brought 
about  a  reconciliation. 

The  king  was  to  have  a  water  party  upon 
the  Thames,  and  the  composer  was  informed 


62       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

of  it.  During  the  procession  of  the  barges 
up  the  river,  a  barge  drew  near  to  the  royal 
boat  and  discoursed  most  beautiful  music. 
After  a  time,  George  I.  asked  the  name  of 
the  composer  of  the  music  which  so  charmed 
him,  whereupon  they  told  him  that  it  was 
written  by  his  old  servant,  Handel,  who  had 
composed  it  especially  for  the  occasion. 
Handel  was  admitted  to  the  royal  barge 
and  again  taken  into  favor.  The  so-called 
"  Water-music,"  which  gained  his  pardon, 
is  still  occasionally  played  in  our  concerts. 

There  now  ensued  many  years  of  operatic 
management  in  London,  during  which  Han- 
del made  and  lost  many  fortunes  and  wrote 
many  operas.  These  operas  (because  of  the 
change  of  many  operatic  fashions)  were  not 
destined  to  be  immortal,  but  they  were  pre- 
paratory to  something  much  greater. 

After  his  fiftieth  birthday,  Handel  sud- 
denly took  a  resolution  to  leave  operatic 
composition,  and  to  devote  himself  entirely 


Opera  and  Oratorio.  63 

to  the  sacred  side  of  music,  —  "  as  becomes 
a  man  descending  the  vale  of  years."  Julius 
Caesar  won  all  his  great  victories  after  his 
fiftieth  year  ;  Handel  won  his  immortal  crown 
as  a  composer  during  the  same  late  epoch. 
"The  Messiah"  crowned  his  career,  and  left 
him  the  most  popular  composer  of  his  time, 
although  he  never  reached  the  great  heights 
of  Bach. 

He  was  a  most  rapid  worker.  His  master- 
piece was  written  in  about  three  weeks,  and 
some  of  his  other  oratorios  were  also  pro- 
duced  with  astonishing  rapidity.  When  his 
inventive  genius  did  not  produce  melodies 
quickly  enough  for  his  purpose,  he  would 
boldly  steal  any  beautiful  tune  that  suited 
his  purpose,  without  going  through  the 
slight  formality  of  giving  its  composer  credit 
for  it.  He  has  been  called  "the  grand  old 
robber,"  but  it  must  be  confessed  that,  when 
he  stole  a  melody,  he  enriched  it  so  with 
his  contrapuntal  genius  that  the  crime  car- 


64       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

ried  its  own  extenuation  with  it.  "  That  pig 
don't  know  what  to  do  with  such  a  tune  !  " 
he  cried,  when  they  reproached  him  with 
stealing  the  melody  of  another  composer. 

Handel  was  imperious  in  the  extreme,  and 
irascible  as  well.  He  needed  these  qualities 
in  managing  the  spoiled  darlings  of  the  public 
who  sang  in  some  of  his  operas.  Cuzzoni, 
for  example,  was  a  most  capricious  prima 
donna ;  after  Handel  had  altered  a  certain 
aria  for  her  a  half  dozen  times,  she  suddenly 
declined  to  sing  in  the  opera  altogether. 
They  were  rehearsing  in  the  third  story  of 
the  opera-house  ;  suddenly  seizing  her,  the 
composer  dragged  her  to  the  window,  and 
held  her  out ;  "  You  will  sing,  or  I  shall 
drop  you,"  he  cried ;  she  sang  thereafter 
with  more  ready  obedience  for  Handel  than 
for  any  other  man  in  London. 

Handel  was  something  of  a  glutton,  and 
there  is  a  caricature  of  his  day  which  repre- 
sents him  with  the  head  of  a  hog,  seated  at 


Opera  and  Oratorio.  65 

the  organ,  while  the  instrument  is  garnished 
with  hams,  sausages,  and  other  coarse  foods. 

His  conduct  became  much  more  exemplary 
in  his  later  years,  for  he  then  grew  more 
charitable  and  less  irascible.  When  blind- 
ness came  upon  him  he  bore  it  with  exem- 
plary fortitude,  although  the  musical  picture 
which  he  had  composed,  of  Samson's  blind- 
ness ("  Total  Eclipse  "),  caused  him  to  weep. 
He  died  April  14,  1/59,  appreciated  by  Eng- 
land as  no  composer  had  ever  been  before. 

He  was  far  bolder  in  his  orchestral  treat- 
ment than  Bach  had  ever  been  ;  in  fact,  many 
touches  of  tone-color  which  are  credited  to 
modern  composers  can  be  found  by  the 
student  in  the  old  operas  of  this  pioneer  of 
the  orchestra,  and  his  dramatic  power  must 
always  make  him  the  favorite  contrapuntist 
of  the  general  public. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

HAYDN  AND  MOZART. 
FRANZ  JOSEF  HAYDN. 

GERMANY  at  this  epoch  is  repaying  the 
debt  it  owes  to  Italy ;  no  longer  do  we  find  a 
long  list  of  Italian  geniuses  in  music,  while 
Germany  assumes  the  leadership,  and  to  the 
names  of  Bach  and  Handel  are  added  those 
of  Haydn  and  Mozart,  the  former  evolving 
instrumental  music  in  its  modern  guise,  the 
latter  adding  a  totally  new  splendor  to  opera. 

Haydn  is  called  "  the  father  of  instru- 
mental form,"  and  to  him  we  owe  the  classi- 
cal symphony,  the  sonata,  the  string  quartette. 
He  was  born  at  the  little  Austrian  village  of 
Rohrau,  March  31,  1732,  in  the  humblest  of 
66 


JOSEPH    HAYDN. 


Haydn  and  Mozart.  67 

circumstances,  his  parents  being  peasants,  his 
birthplace  a  mere  farmhouse  of  one  story, 
with  a  rough  barn  attached.  His  musical 
abilities  were  discovered  in  his  childhood, 
and  a  cousin  named  Frankh  offered  to  train 
the  young  prodigy.  The  training  was  of  the 
conventional  sort  of  that  epoch,  and  was  plen- 
tifully interspersed  with  floggings  when  the 
lessons  went  wrong. 

Two  years  later,  George  Reuter,  director 
of  the  great  cathedral  of  Vienna,  heard  the  lad 
and  caused  him  to  become  a  member  of  the 
choir  of  St.  Stephen's,  promising  good  musi- 
cal training  to  the  young  singer.  Frankh  had 
been  a  hard  teacher  but  an  earnest  one,  but 
Reuter  was  neither ;  he  simply  neglected  the 
lad  altogether,  and  while  Haydn  all  his  life 
cherished  gratitude  for  the  former  master,  he 
states  that  he  can  remember  only  two  regular 
lessons  in  music  given  him  by  Reuter,  and 
this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  was  full 
of  ambition  and  showed  many  indications  of 


68      Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

musical  zeal.  He  learned  absolutely  nothing 
at  the  cathedral  school,  although  the  daily 
hearing  of  fine  music  must  have  been  good 
pabulum  for  the  incipient  composer. 

But  the  evil  day  came  when  his  voice  broke, 
and  as  he  had  also  played  a  boyish  prank  on 
a  fellow  student  by  cutting  off  his  pigtail,  and 
as  the  Empress  of  Austria  had  said  "  that 
young  Haydn  sings  like  a  crow,"  he  was  sud- 
denly expelled  from  the  choir  and  the  school, 
a  sound  flogging  being  added  to  the  dismissal. 

Haydn  now  lived  for  a  little  while  upon 
the  charity  of  a  friend  named  Spangler.  He 
could  have  returned  to  his  parents  at  Rohrau, 
but  he  feared  that  this  would  mean  an  abne- 
gation of  his  musical  career,  and  he  clung  to 
his  art  with  a  species  of  frenzy.  He  was  at 
this  time  almost  entirely  self-taught,  Fux's 
"  Gradus  ad  Parnassum,"  Mattheson's  works, 
and  the  sonatas  of  Philipp  Emanuel  Bach 
being  his  daily  study.  He  had  a  few  pupils, 
and  also  obtained  an  occasional  chance  to 


Haydn  and  Mozart.  69 

play  violin  at  dances,  bravely  struggling  with 
a  famine  that  seemed  to  become  chronic. 

A  Viennese  tradesman,  named  Buchholtz, 
now  insisted  upon  loaning  him  one  hundred 
and  fifty  florins,  without  either  interest  or 
security,  until  better  days  should  come.  It 
was  altogether  a  lucky  transaction,  for  Haydn 
at  once  hired  a  garret  of  his  own  in  a  large 
house,  and  in  this  house  there  dwelt  a  poet 
who  had  many  musical  connections, — the  cele- 
brated Metastasio.  This  gentleman  soon  took 
a  friendly  interest  in  the  poor  young  man 
who  dwelt  so  far  above  him,  and  not  only  got 
some  fashionable  pupils  for  him,  but  intro- 
duced him  to  the  great  singing  teacher,  Por- 
pora  (probably  the  greatest  vocal  teacher  the 
world  has  ever  possessed),  who  occasionally 
allowed  him  to  act  as  accompanist  at  his 
lessons  and  also  to  become  his  body-servant. 
Haydn  has  been  called  "  Porpora's  boot- 
black," and  the  title  is  no  exaggeration,  for 
he  was  glad  to  perform  any  menial  services 


70       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

for  the  master  who  occasionally  helped  him 
along  the  thorny  road  of  composition,  and 
who  allowed  him  to  sit  by  during  many  a 
music  lesson  given  to  richer  pupils. 

Haydn  was  now  about  twenty,  and  had  re- 
ceived buffetings  ever  since  he  had  left  the 
farm  ;  the  results  of  this  early  career  left 
their  marks  upon  his  character,  and  while  he 
was  always  cheerful  (for  adversity  did  not 
sour  him),  he  was  also  always  servile  and 
had  not  an  iota  of  the  independence  which 
marked  Beethoven's  character.  At  this  time 
he  composed  his  first  mass,  a  remarkable 
work  for  a  self-taught  genius.  He  also 
wrote  an  opera,  and  for  a  long  time  after- 
wards imagined  that  his  special  power  lay  in 
the  direction  of  operatic  composition,  —  a 
decided  mistake. 

The  dark  days  were  now  ended ;  he  soon 
composed  a  set  of  sonatas  which  came  to 
the  notice  of  the  aristocracy,  and  Countess 
Thun  soon  brought  to  him  a  circle  of  well- 


Haydn  and  Mozart.  7 1 

paying  pupils,  and  finally  induced  Count 
Maximilian  Morzin,  a  wealthy  Bohemian,  to 
engage  him  as  director  of  his  private  orches- 
tra. Now  at  last  our  young  composer  had 
an  opportunity  to  attempt  orchestral  com- 
position, and  the  result  was  that  he  com- 
posed a  host  of  string  quartettes  and,  in 
1759,  his  first  symphony. 

In  1760  he  married.  It  was  a  most  un- 
happy match  ;  he  had  wooed  the  youngest 
daughter  of  a  wig-maker  named  Keller,  but 
the  maiden  was  deeply  religious,  and  finally 
became  a  nun.  The  father  urged  him  to 
marry  the  elder  daughter  instead,  and  Haydn 
assented,  although  she  was  three  years  his 
senior.  There  followed  many  years  of  do- 
mestic infelicity,  and  finally  a  separation  ;  the 
wife  was  a  virago  of  the  most  pronounced 
type,  who  could  have  given  points  to  Xan- 
tippe  herself. 

A  year  after  the  marriage  we  find  Haydn 
appointed  second  kapellmeister  to  Prince 


72       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

Paul  Anton  Esterhazy.  The  contract  shows 
how  much  of  a  servant  the  musician  was  in 
the  last  century ;  in  it  Haydn  is  commanded 
to  be  strictly  temperate,  to  abstain  from  any 
coarseness  in  eating,  in  dress,  or  in  man- 
ners, and  he  was  at  this  time  constantly 
addressed  in  the  contemptuous  third  person 
as  «  Er." 

Nevertheless  he  was  entirely  satisfied,  was 
delighted  with  the  quality  of  his  sixteen 
musicians  and  with  his  vocalists,  and  when 
Prince  Paul  died  and  Prince  Nicholas,  the 
most  munificent  of  the  Esterhazys,  suc- 
ceeded him,  we  find  Haydn  appointed  kapell- 
meister, with  a  good  salary,  which  he  greatly 
increased  by  the  sale  of  his  compositions, 
which  were  now  becoming  known  all  over 
the  world. 

He  still  remained  in  seclusion  at  Esterhazy, 
however,  writing  symphony  after  symphony, 
quartette  after  quartette,  and  receiving  gold 
medals,  diamond  rings,  and  other  tributes  of 


Haydn  and  Mozart.  73 

homage  from  the  sovereigns  and  nobility  of 
Europe.  His  service  might  have  gone  on 
until  his  death  had  not  Prince  Nicholas  died 
in  1790,  leaving  Haydn  a  good  pension. 
Prince  Anton,  his  successor,  was  unmusical, 
and  dismissed  the  orchestra. 

Haydn,  now  fifty-eight  years  of  age,  was 
free  to  go  wherever  he  pleased  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life.  A  London  manager  and 
conductor  named  Salomon  immediately  took 
advantage  of  this  favorable  turn  of  affairs  to 
induce  the  great  composer  to  visit  England 
to  give  a  series  of  concerts,  and  the  first  of 
January,  1791,  finds  Haydn  in  a  foreign 
country  for  the  first  time.  Here  the  highest 
honors  were  showered  upon  him  ;  his  sym- 
phonies (six  of  his  very  best  were  composed 
for  this  first  tour)  received  the  best  perform- 
ance and  the  highest  commendation ;  he  was 
the  guest  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  for  three 
days  ;  he  was  given  the  honorary  degree  of 
doctor  by  Oxford  University  ;  the  Prince  of 


74      Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

Wales  played  the  violoncello  part  in  one 
of  his  compositions,  and  the  Viennese  guest 
had  all  the  aristocratic  pupils  that  he  could 
take  at  the  highest  prices. 

In  1792  he  was  again  in  Vienna,  received 
with  rejoicing  by  the  entire  city.  A  young 
composer  by  the  name  of  Beethoven  fol- 
lowed him  to  Vienna  at  this  time  to  take 
lessons  in  counterpoint  and  general  composi- 
tion. Haydn  rather  neglected  these  lessons, 
a  fact  not  much  to  be  wondered  at  when  the 
fact  is  borne  in  mind  that  Beethoven  paid 
only  twenty  cents  a  lesson,  and  that  Haydn 
had  just  come  from  overwhelming  honors 
and  high  prices  in  England. 

Haydn  was  much  impressed  while  in  Lon- 
don by  the  respect  shown  by  the  English  for 
their  national  hymn,  "  God  Save  the  King," 
and  determined  that  he  would  write  one  for 
his  own  country.  On  his  return,  therefore, 
from  the  English  tour,  he  wrote  the  present 
national  hymn  of  Austria,  "  Gott  erhalte 


Haydn  and  Mozart.  75 

Franz  den  Kaiser,"  almost  the  only  instance 
of  a  national  anthem  being  written  with 
premeditation  ;  the  work,  however,  bears  a 
strong  relationship  to  the  English  national 
hymn,  although  based  on  a  Croatian  tune. 

In  1794  Haydn  was  induced  to  make  a 
second  journey  to  England ;  he  had  thought 
of  bringing  his  pupil,  Beethoven,  with  him, 
but  that  young  man  had  irritated  him  so 
constantly  that  he  called  him  "the  Great 
Mogul,"  and  left  him  behind  in  Vienna. 
During  this  stay  in  England  even  royalty 
itself  was  at  Haydn's  feet,  and  he  was  invited 
to  spend  the  summer  in  Windsor  Castle,  but 
preferred  to  return  to  Vienna.  Six  more 
symphonies  were  composed  during  this  sec- 
ond tour,  making  the  two  sets  of  "  English 
Symphonies,"  the  culmination  of  his  orches- 
tral works. 

The  pinnacle  of  his  fame  was  reached 
with  the  oratorio  "  The  Creation,"  and  the 
great  cantata  "The  Seasons."  The  latter 


76       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

work  killed  its  composer,  for  the  frenzy  of 
composition  was  too  much  for  his  now  en- 
feebled frame.  In  his  seventy-sixth  year  a 
great  performance  of  "The  Creation"  was 
given  in  his  honor  in  Vienna,  and  it  is  pos- 
sible that  the  excitement  attendant  upon  this 
gave  him  his  death-blow.  In  the  oratorio,  at 
the  words  "  Let  there  be  light,  —  and  there 
was  light,"  there  is  a  thrilling  change  from 
minor  to  major ;  the  day  had  been  overcast 
and  the  skies  were  lowering  and  threatening ; 
just  as  the  final  words  were  reached  the  sun 
burst  forth  in  full  splendor  and  flooded  the 
hall  with  light ;  a  strange  thrill  went  through 
the  audience,  and  all  eyes  were  turned  to- 
wards the  old  composer,  who  arose  in  great 
excitement  and,  pointing  towards  heaven, 
cried  out,  "  It  came  from  there ! "  This 
expressed  the  devout  belief  in  the  divine 
origin  of  his  gifts  that  had  been  character- 
istic of  Haydn  from  the  very  beginning. 
The  excitement,  however,  was  too  intense 


Haydn  and  Mozart.  77 

for  him,  and  he  soon  lay  on  his  death- 
bed. 

During  his  final  illness  the  French  were 
bombarding  Vienna.  His  servants  were  ter- 
rified, but,  with  amusing  conceit,  he  assured 
them,  "  You  are  safe  with  Haydn ! "  He 
caused  them  to  carry  him  to  the  piano,  where 
he  played  the  "  Austrian  Hymn,"  his  own, 
'three  times.  During  this  same  bombard- 
ment there  was  another  composer  in  Vienna 
who  sat  in  perturbation  within  a  cellar,  with 
cotton  wool  stuffed  in  his  ears,  fearing  that 
the  sound  of  the  explosions  would  ruin  his 
already  weakened  hearing ;  this  was  Louis 
van  Beethoven. 

It  was  a  pleasant  proof  that  Art  belongs 
to  no  one  country,  to  find  the  French  officers 
visiting  the  sick  Haydn  after  the  city  had 
been  captured.  Some  of  them  were  present 
at  the  funeral  which  very  soon  followed,  for 
Hadyn  died  May  31,  1809. 

Haydn's  most  perfect  musical  expression, 


78       Great  Composers  ana  Their  Work. 

judged  by  the  taste  of  the  present  day,  is  found 
in  his  string  quartettes  ;  his  symphonies  have 
been  overshadowed  by  later  productions  in 
this  form.  His  "  Creation "  is  memorable 
as  giving  a  series  of  graphic  pictures  with 
the  help  of  the  orchestra  in  a  manner  which 
went  beyond  the  attempts  of  Gluck,  but  its 
third  part  seems  very  conventional  nowadays. 
It  has  become  the  fashion  to  patronize  "  Papa 
Haydn,"  but  he  was  a  pioneer  in  many  fields 
of  music,  and  the  composer  of  the  present 
would  be  much  the  better  for  a  little  of  the 
dainty  grace  and  constant  melody  which  was 
his  chief  characteristic. 

WOLFGANG   AMADEUS    MOZART. 

There  are  two  lives  among  the  biographies 
of  great  composers  which  are  especially  pa- 
thetic :  Mozart  and  Schubert  were  both 
geniuses,  both  underrated  while  they  were 
alive,  both  engaged  with  an  incessant  combat 
with  the  wolf  at  the  door,  and  both  died 


WOLFGANG    MOZART. 


Haydn  and  Mozart.  79 

young  because  of  this  incessant  conflict,  and 
probably  of  the  same  disease.  Both  were 
also  the  most  spontaneous  of  musical  creators, 
but  with  Mozart  this  creative  faculty  was  com- 
bined with  a  phenomenal  amount  of  learning. 
Mozart  was  born  in  the  city  of  Salzburg, 
January  27,  1756.  His  father,  Leopold 
Mozart,  was  a  good  musician,  a  fine  violinist, 
and  a  pious  man.  The  child  was  a  strange 
one,  emotional,  old-fashioned,  and  deemed  un- 
likely to  live.  He  had  a  peculiarly  shaped 
aural  passage,  much  smaller  than  ordinary 
children,  and  the  sound  of  a  trumpet  would 
send  him  into  spasms  of  terror.  He  was 
wonderfully  susceptible  to  the  general  sounds 
of  music,  however,  and  would  reach  up  to  the 
keyboard  of  the  spinet  on  which  his  sister 
Maria  Anna  took  her  music  lessons,  and  en- 
deavor to  imitate  the  pleasant  sounds,  before 
he  was  four  years  old.  At  five  years  he 
composed  the  composition  which  is  herewith 
printed. 


8o      Great  Composers  and  Their  Work, 


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82       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

The  father,  who  was  attached  to  the  musi- 
cal establishment  of  the  Archbishop  of  Salz- 
burg, soon  obtained  leave  of  absence  and 
made  a  concert  tour  with  his  two  prodigies. 
At  Vienna  the  children  met  with  a  great 
reception,  the  young  Mozart  playing  before 
the  Empress  Maria  Theresa,  and  also  becom- 
ing a  playmate  of  the  little  princess  who 
afterwards  became  Queen  of  France,  the  un- 
fortunate Marie  Antoinette.  The  triumphal 
journey  was  extended  to  Paris  and  to  London. 
A  golden  harvest  was  reaped  in  the  tour,  a 
strong  contrast  to  the  lack  of  pecuniary 
result  which  attended  all  of  Mozart's  later 
efforts. 

In  1770  the  boy  of  fourteen  was  taken  to 
Italy,  where  honors  were  still  showered  upon 
him.  The  Pope  decorated  him  ;  he  met  with 
the  greatest  singer  of  his  time,  the  celebrated 
Farinelli ;  and  the  great  contrapuntist,  Padre 
Martini,  gave  him  some  tests  of  musicianship 
which  the  lad  easily  met.  At  this  time  he 


Haydn  and  Mozart.  83 

gave  proof  of  his  musical  memory  by  writing 
out  the  Allegri  "  Miserere  "  (which  the  papal 
singers  desired  to  keep  for  themselves)  after 
a  single  hearing  at  the  Sistine  Chapel. 

The  entire  Italian  sojourn  was  of  great 
value  to  Mozart,  for  it  gave  him  a  good  com- 
prehension of  opera  and  taught  him  how  to 
express  his  musical  ideas  with  that  singability 
which  is  so  often  absent  from  the  works  of 
the  German  masters,  who  are  sometimes  un- 
vocal  even  in  their  greatest  oratorios,  cantatas, 
and  operas.  The  Italian  journey  was,  how- 
ever, soon  interrupted  by  a  summons  from 
the  Archbishop  of  Salzburg,  who  commanded 
a  return.  In  1772  we  find  Mozart,  now  a 
youth  of  sixteen,  in  the  service  of  the  arch- 
bishop, and  remaining  placidly  in  Salzburg  for 
the  next  five  years.  Meanwhile  he  has  given 
an  opera,  "  La  Finta  Giardiniera,"  at  Munich, 
with  decided  success,  and  his  Italian  career 
has  been  studded  with  other  less  important 
operas  and  sacred  works. 


84       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

In  17/7  the  father  thought  that  another 
tour  might  be  profitable,  but  his  prospects 
were  nipped  in  the  bud  by  the  archbishop, 
who  roughly  replied  to  his  application  for 
leave  of  absence,  "  I  don't  want  such  beg- 
gary from  town  to  town ! "  The  young 
Mozart  thereupon  demanded  his  dismissal, 
which  was  angrily  granted  with  the  remark, 
"  It  will  only  be  one  musician  the  less ! " 
The  tour  was  therefore  made  without  the 
father,  Mozart  and  his  mother  setting  out  to- 
gether. Munich  and  Augsburg  were  visited 
without  much  result,  and  then  came  Mann- 
heim, where  there  was  a  large  orchestra 
under  the  patronage  of  the  Elector  Karl 
Theodore.  Here  Mozart  remained  for  a 
time,  making  musical  acquaintances  right 
and  left,  and  heartily  enjoying  "The  Para- 
dise of  Musicians,"  as  Mannheim  was  often 
called. 

Among  his  musical  acquaintances  were 
the  Webers,  the  father  being  connected 


Haydn  and  Mozart.  85 

with  the  Mannheim  theatre,  and  all  the 
five  daughters  being  more  or  less  talented. 
The  second  daughter,  Aloysia,  a  beauty,  and 
a  good  singer,  won  the  heart  of  the  com- 
poser, and  he  seemed  intent  on  remaining 
in  Mannheim  indefinitely.  The  father  of 
Mozart,  hearing  of  the  state  of  the  case, 
sent  a  firm  letter,  commanding  a  continua- 
tion of  the  journey  and  a  departure  for 
Paris.  Mozart  had  always  the  utmost  re- 
spect for  the  wishes  of  his  father,  and  there- 
fore tearfully  parted  from  his  sweetheart, 
who  gave  him  two  pairs  of  mittens  which  she 
had  worked  for  him.  The  present  was  typ- 
ical, for  she  afterwards  gave  him  the  mitten 
altogether,  being  piqued  that  Mozart  should 
place  his  father's  wishes  above  her  affection. 
In  Paris  Mozart  was,  naturally  enough 
under  the  circumstances,  very  sour  and 
gloomy.  Yet  the  stay  was  of  great  benefit 
to  him,  for  here  he  learned  that  dramatic 
expression  in  opera  which  Italy  was  at  that 


86       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

time  not  competent  to  teach.  But  the  death 
of  his  mother  and  the  French  indifference 
to  German  composers  led  to  a  return  to 
Salzburg.  It  was  almost  a  presentiment 
when  Mozart,  after  starting  homeward,  de- 
nounced his  return  as  a  piece  of  folly,  and 
said  that  he  had  cast  away  his  future  by  not 
remaining  in  France. 

Mozart  always  hated  the  Philistine  city 
of  Salzburg,  and  he  was  not  more  inclined 
to  it  after  his  enforced  return  from  France. 
When,  therefore,  he  was  called  at  the  end 
of  1780  to  produce  another  opera  in  Munich, 
he  was  in  no  hurry  to  return  to  his  prison. 
The  archbishop  (in  whose  service  Mozart 
was  once  more  bound)  had,  meanwhile, 
started  to  Vienna,  and  thither  Mozart  was 
summoned  in  a  peremptory  manner.  The 
archbishop  was  in  a  bad  humor,  and  he 
especially  hated  the  rather  independent 
young  composer.  The  reception,  therefore, 
was  warm  even  to  sultriness ;  the  arch- 


Haydn  and  Mozart.  87 

demon,  or  rather  the  archbishop,  called 
Mozart  such  names  that  it  is  impossible  to 
reprint  them  here ;  he  forced  him  to  take 
his  meals  with  the  servants,  and  in  every 
manner  he  seemed  to  delight  in  goading  the 
composer-servant  to  frenzy.  At  last  Mozart 
begged  to  be  dismissed  altogether,  and  the 
archbishop's  steward  was  commissioned  to 
kick  the  discharged  composer  violently 
down-stairs !  It  is  possible  that  the  two 
lives  given  in  this  chapter  may  impress 
upon  the  reader  the  status  of  the  general 
musician  during  the  last  century.  Haydn 
and  Mozart,  during  the  early  part  of  their 
careers,  were  treated  somewhat  more  dis- 
dainfully than  servants  are  in  the  present 
century. 

Although  poverty  was  before  him,  at 
least  Mozart  had  suffered  his  last  con- 
tumely. Joseph  II.,  Emperor  of  Austria, 
took  up  the  composer  —  and  put  him  down 
again.  Playing  before  the  emperor  brought 


88       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

in  fifty  ducats  ;  then  came  a  commission  to 
set  "The  Escape  from  the  Seraglio."  After 
the  performance  (1782),  the  emperor  only 
said,  "Too  many  notes."  "Just  enough 
notes  for  the  subject,  your  majesty,"  replied 
the  undaunted  composer. 

In  1782  Mozart  married  Constance  Weber, 
sister  of  the  Aloysia  who  had  first  won  his 
heart  and  had  now  married  an  actor  named 
Lange.  It  was  an  ill-considered  match, 
although  both  parties  loved  each  other  ten- 
derly ;  the  wife  was  as  helpless  in  household 
thrift  as  Mozart  was  unpractical,  and  so 
these  babes  in  the  woods  went  gaily  into 
a  married  state  that  promised  privation  in 
all  abundance,  but  not  much  of  anything 
else. 

Constance  Mozart  long  outlived  her  hus- 
band, and  remarried  some  time  after  his 
death.  Her  own  death  occurred  as  late 
as  1842. 

Mozart  has  been  accused,  on  rather  insuffi- 


Haydn  and  Mozart.  89 

cient  evidence,  of  being  a  very  dissipated 
man,  and  the  same  charge  has  been  made 
against  Schubert.  The  same  reply  will  suffice 
for  both  these  charges  :  both  these  masters 
died  very  young,  yet  both  left  an  enormous 
list  of  compositions ;  therefore,  their  work 
was  constant ;  but  both  were  "  Wiener- 
kinder"  ("children  of  Vienna"),  and  had 
the  social  character  and  the  failings  of  their 
time  and  environment,  —  they  were  neither 
better  nor  worse  than  the  Viennese  of  their 
day. 

After  the  marriage  the  fight  with  poverty 
was  constant  in  the  Mozart  household,  yet 
there  was  no  despondency.  Joseph  Deiner 
has  left  an  account  of  his  coming  suddenly 
into  their  room  and  finding  the  pair  waltz- 
ing around  the  apartment.  "We  were  cold," 
said  they,  "and  we  have  no  wood."  Yet 
there  were  moments  of  triumph,  too,  al- 
though these  never  by  any  chance  turned 
into  cash.  "  The  Marriage  of  Figaro  "  made 


90       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

a  great  success  at  Vienna,  and  in  Prague 
caused  a  veritable  furore.  The  composer 
was  called  to  Prague,  was  the  guest  of  a 
nobleman  there,  was  honored  by  the  entire 
city,  and  the  orchestra  rose  and  blew  a 
"  Tusch "  (a  fanfare  of  homage)  whenever 
he  came  to  the  theatre. 

Mozart's  was  undoubtedly  a  Bohemian 
career,  in  which  poverty  itself  was  treated 
with  insouciance.  He  thought  once  of  going 
again  to  London.  Had  he  gone  there  in  his 
adult  years  he  might  have  repeated  the  ex- 
perience of  Haydn  (he  died  in  the  same  year 
that  Haydn  was  being  feted  in  London),  and 
his  loftiest  works  might  have  proceeded 
from  English  encouragement ;  had  he  stayed 
in  Paris  he  would  also  have  eventually  be- 
come well-to-do.  This  is  one  of  the  "  ifs  "  of 
musical  history. 

Mozart  was  an  enthusiastic  Freemason 
(yet  at  the  same  time  a  fairly  devout  Cath- 
olic), and  this  led  to  his  composing  some 


Haydn  and  Mozart.  91 

very  important  masonic  music,  and  is  also 
said  to  have  inspired  some  of  the  mysterious 
touches  in  his  opera  of  "The  Magic  Flute." 
He  declined  a  liberal  offer  to  enter  the  ser- 
vice of  the  King  of  Prussia  from  an  absurd 
loyalty  to  the  Emperor  of  Austria,  who  al- 
lowed him  to  starve.  The  prices  that  he 
received  for  some  of  his  operas  are  incred- 
ibly small.  "Don  Giovanni,"  his  greatest 
work,  and  one  of  the  world's  imperishable 
masterpieces,  obtained  for  him  the  sum 
of  one  hundred  ducats,  which  is  less  than 
a  modern  music  copyist  would  transcribe 
the  parts  for.  This  great  opera  was  first 
produced  in  Prague,  October  29,  1787,  and 
Mozart  is  said  to  have  composed  the  overture 
the  night  before  the  performance. 

In  1788  Mozart  wrote  his  last  three  sym- 
phonies (he  wrote  forty-nine  in  all,  while 
Haydn  composed  about  one  hundred  and 
fifty),  and  each  of  these  works  is  a  master- 
piece in  its  way,  the  one  in  E  flat  being  the 


92       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

first  symphony  with  a  clarinet  part,  the 
one  in  C  being  the  great  "Jupiter  Sym- 
phony," the  most  ambitious  symphony  of 
the  last  century,  and  the  one  in  G  minor 
being  a  very  violet  among  symphonies,  the 
tenderest  and  daintiest  instrumental  compo- 
sition of  the  master.  In  1791  came  his 
last  opera,  "The  Magic  Flute,"  and  then 
came  the  swan  song,  the  "  Requiem." 

There  has  been  much  imaginative  litera- 
ture written  about  the  strange  circumstances 
attending  the  production  of  this  work ;  it  is 
therefore  well  to  state  the  details  of  the 
matter.  In  1791  there  came  to  the  dwell- 
ing of  Mozart  a  man  clothed  in  black,  who 
dismounted  from  a  carriage  that  bore  no 
marks  of  identification.  The  stranger 
sought  the  composer,  and  asked  him  if  he 
could  write  a  requiem  mass  to  order.  This 
appealed  to  Mozart's  Catholic  feelings,  and 
he  gladly  accepted  the  commission.  The 
price  was  fixed,  and  the  mysterious  stranger, 


Haydn  and  Mozart.  93 

refusing  to  give  his  name,  at  once  paid  half 
of  it  in  gold,  fixing  the  date  when  he  would 
return  and  pay  the  other  half,  and  take  the 
finished  composition.  He  returned  at  the 
time  he  had  set,  but  Mozart  had  been  direct- 
ing some  of  his  operas,  and  had  failed  to 
complete  the  work.  Another  date  was  set, 
and  the  stranger  again  departed, '  still  pre- 
serving his  incognito.  Now  Mozart  began 
to  brood  over  the  matter ;  he  was  in  poor 
health,  and  he  became  firmly  convinced  that 
the  stranger  was  a  messenger  from  the 
other  world  to  announce  his  death  to  him  ; 
he  felt  that  the  "  Requiem  "  was  to  be  his  own 
funeral  song.  He  had  been  treated  with 
such  injustice  and  jealousy  by  all  with  whom 
he  had  dealings  that  he  imagined  that  some 
one  had  poisoned  him.  His  premonitions 
were  verified  in  so  far  that  the  "  Requiem  " 
was  sung  around  his  death-bed  in  order  that 
he  might  hear  the  effect  of  some  of  its 
numbers. 


94      Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

Here  many  of  the  biographies  end  their 
tale,  leaving  the  impression  of  a  well- 
developed  ghost  story.  The  remaining  facts 
clear  up  the  mystery.  The  stranger  came 
after  Mozart's  death,  and  claimed  the  "  Re- 
quiem," paying  the  balance  due,  and  disap- 
pearing as  mysteriously  as  before.  It  was 
long  afterwards  proven  that  the  man  was 
Leutgeb,  steward  of  Count  von  Walsegg,  an 
eminent  scoundrel  who  desired  to  give  out 
the  composition  as  his  own,  which  at  once 
accounts  for  the  secrecy  which  surrounded 
the  entire  proceedings. 

But  there  is  enough  of  mystery  still  sur- 
rounding the  "  Requiem."  Mozart  was  not 
able  to  entirely  finish  it  before  his  death, 
and  consequently  he  commanded  his  pupil, 
Siissmayer,  to  write  out  the  incomplete 
portions ;  it  is,  therefore,  difficult  to  assert 
just  what  parts  have  been  written  by  the 
master  and  which  by  the  pupil.  Fortunately, 
the  musical  thief,  when  giving  forth  the  com- 


Haydn  and  Mozart.  95 

position  as  his  own,  did  not  destroy  the  origi- 
nal manuscript,  and  portions  of  it  coming  to 
light  long  after,  proved  that  the  "  Requiem  " 
belonged  to  Mozart  ;  but  for  years  there  was 
a  controversy  about  the  authorship  of  the 
great  work,  and  those  who  claimed  it  for  the 
real  composer  were  met  by  the  undoubtedly 
true  statement  that  the  composition  was 
altogether  more  grave  and  severe  than 
Mozart's  style  of  work,  but  the  sorrowful 
premonitions  attending  its  creation  fully 
account  for  this. 

It  may  be  mentioned  here  that  if  fate 
came  near  to  depriving  Mozart  of  the  honor 
of  one  of  his  own  works,  it  has,  on  the  other 
hand,  given  him  credit  for  a  composition 
which  he  probably  did  not  write ;  there  is 
much  controversy  going  on  regarding  the 
authorship  of  what  is  called  "Mozart's 
Twelfth  Mass,"  of  which  Mozart  probably 
wrote  very  little.  There  are  other  composi- 
tions in  the  repertoire  which  have  similar 


96      Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

doubtful  origins.  Thus,  Schubert's  "Adieu" 
is  probably  not  Schubert's  at  all ;  Weber's 
"  Last  Thought  "  was  not  his  last  nor  his  first ; 
in  fact,  it  was  not  his  thought  at  all,  but  a 
pretty  waltz  by  Reissiger ;  and  Beethoven's 
"Farewell  to  the  Piano"  was  written  by  him 
long  before  he  wrote  his  greatest  piano  com- 
positions, the  last  five  sonatas,  and  was  simply 
an  Album-leaf  of  no  very  great  merit. 

Mozart  died  December  5,  1791,  and  it 
seemed  as  if  fate  had  even  then  not  ended  its 
persecutions,  for,  on  the  day  of  his  funeral,  a 
great  storm  arose,  and  the  few  friends  who 
made  up  the  cortege  turned  back  at  the  gate 
of  the  cemetery.  The  body  was  laid  in  one 
of  the  common  tombs  in  which  many  other 
coffins  were  placed.  When  at  last  the 
world  awoke  to  the  fact  that  a  great  master 
had  died,  there  was  no  one  who  could 
identify  his  resting-place.  As  the  burial 
had  taken  place  some  years  before,  it  is 
probable  that  the  tomb  had  been  emptied, 


Haydn  and  Mozart.  97 

and  a  new  set  of  occupants  interred.  There- 
fore, the  monument  to  Mozart,  in  the  great 
central  cemetery  of  Vienna,  stands  over  an 
empty  grave,  and  no  one  knows  where  the 
dust  of  this  composer  has  its  sepulture. 

In  the  present  days,  when  turgidity  and 
dissonance  seem  to  be  the  aim  of  many 
modern  composers,  Mozart  is  sometimes 
looked  upon  as  too  na'fve  and  simple,  but 
it  is  doubtful  if  a  more  fluent  composer  ever 
existed  ;  his  great  learning  is  never  obtruded 
upon  the  auditor  in  any  manner  ;  gentility 
and  daintiness  are  in  almost  all  of  his  works  ; 
he  had  a  fund  of  melody  only  equalled  by 
Haydn,  and  in  his  operas,  even  in  his  most 
earnest  moments,  he  never  becomes  in  the 
slightest  degree  unvocal.  Among  the  Ger- 
man composers  there  are  only  two  who  in 
their  vocal  works  are  always  and  entirely 
singable,  and  these  are  Schubert  and  Mozart. 

Mozart  is  scarcely  to  be  regarded  as  a 
reformer  in  music ;  he  did  not  invent  much 


98       Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

that  was  entirely  new,  but  rather  advanced 
and  developed  the  forms  and  theories  which 
had  been  established  by  his  predecessors. 
He  followed  Haydn  in  symphony  and  sonata, 
but  gave  a  finer  treatment  to  these  forms 
than  Haydn  had  done ;  he  was  the  successor 
of  Gluck  in  opera,  yet  his  "Don  Giovanni" 
carried  the  theories  of  "  Orpheus "  to  infi- 
nitely greater  heights.  He  was,  however, 
the  founder  of  the  instrumental  concerto,  and 
the  first  to  apply  the  sonata-movement  form 
regularly  to  the  overture.  He  left  seven 
hundred  and  sixty-nine  compositions  in  all, 
ranging  from  the  very  largest  to  the  simplest 
song-forms.  In  literature  Milton  has  not 
abolished  Wordsworth ;  in  music  not  the 
most  lurid  modern  orchestral  scores  can 
abolish  the  glories  of  Wolfgang  Amadeus 
Mozart. 


LUDWIG   VAN   BEETHOVEN 


CHAPTER  V. 

LUDWIG   VAN    BEETHOVEN. 

IF  musicians  were  asked  the  question, 
"Who  is  the  greatest  of  all  the  musical 
masters  ? "  most  of  them  would  reply, 
"  Beethoven."  Yet  this  is  a  statement  not 
entirely  true ;  judged  from  the  purely  intel- 
lectual standpoint,  Bach  is,  probably,  the 
greatest  musician  that  ever  lived  ;  weighed 
by  the  standard  of  emotional  expression 
Chopin  might  be  accorded  the  leadership. 
It  is  always  dangerous  to  attempt  to  rank 
composers  one  with  another,  but  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  in  the  perfect  combination  of  the 
intellectual  and  the  emotional  sides  of  music 
no  one  has,  as  yet,  equalled  Beethoven,  and 
it  is  just  this  equipoise  of  brain  and  heart 
99 


ioo     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

that  appeals   most   strongly  to  the    modern 
auditor. 

Beethoven  was  born  at  Bonn,  December 
1 6  (there  is  some  doubt  about  this  date), 
1770 ;  Beethoven  himself  maintained  that  his 
birth-year  was  1772,  but  this  opinion  has 
been  disproved.  He  came  of  a  musical 
family,  but  probably  inherited  his  sturdy 
character  and  his  broad  musicianship  from 
his  grandfather,  who  attained  to  the  rank  of 
kapellmeister.  His  father  was  also  a  mu- 
sician, a  tenor  singer,  member  of  the  musical 
establishment  of  the  Elector  of  Bonn,  and, 
unfortunately,  this  parent  was  a  worthless 
character,  a  confirmed  sot.  Beethoven  there- 
fore inherited  both  musical  gifts  and  physical 
infirmities,  for  the  deafness  which  came  upon 
him  in  later  years  was  a  legacy  from  the 
dissipated  side  of  his  family.  Beethoven's 
mother  was  of  low  social  station,  the 
daughter  of  a  cook  (Haydn's  mother  was 
also  a  cook),  but  she  seems  to  have  been  the 


Ludwig  Van  Beethoven.  101 

busy  bee  in  the  otherwise   shiftless  house- 
hold. 

The  remarkable  childhood  of  Mozart  had 
an  unfortunate  influence  on  the  early  years 
of  Beethoven,  for  his  worthless  father  had 
heard  of  the  great  success  of  the  Mozart 
prodigies  in  Vienna,  Paris,  and  London,  and 
believed  that  he  could  line  his  own  pockets 
if  he  made  a  musical  prodigy  of  the  young 
Louis.  But  Beethoven  was  not  a  prodigy, 
and  if  he  had  been,  the  father  was  not  the 
person  to  foster  the  growth  of  early  genius  ; 
the  musical  instruction  given  by  him  and  a 
wretched  boon-companion  named  Pfeiffer  was 
intermittent  and  irregular,  yet  severe.  After 
a  day  spent  at  the  tavern  the  worthy  pair 
would  remember  their  duties  as  instructors, 
and  the  boy  of  five  or  six  years  would  be 
exercised  at  the  piano  until  late  into  the 
night ;  visitors  at  the  Beethovens  have  left 
on  record  the  fact  of  seeing  the  child  at  the 
piano,  shedding  tears  over  the  keyboard,  at 


IO2     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

the  mismanaged  and  irksome  task.  It  is  a 
wonder  that  the  boy  was  not  imbued  with 
a  distaste  for  music  in  these  early  years,  but 
he  progressed,  although  not  at  a  "prodigy" 
pace,  until  the  two  "  instructors "  felt  that 
he  ought  to  have  a  regular  teacher. 

Christian  Gottlieb  Neefe  was  really  the 
first  teacher  who  awakened  the  love  of  music 
in  the  bosom  where  it  had  been  smouldering; 
he  gave  the  lad  a  good  deal  of  Bach  as  study, 
and  seems  to  have  awakened  a  genuine  love 
for  the  masters  in  the  rather  sombre  and 
melancholy  boy.  A  very  respectable  two- 
voiced  fugue  which  the  young  Beethoven 
wrote  at  this  time  still  exists,  and  there  were 
some  sonatas  composed  by  him  which  show 
that  the  classical  forms  were  being  worked 
at  to  good  advantage. 

Such  achievements  drew  the  attention  of 
the  Elector  of  Bonn  towards  him,  and 
Beethoven  was  soon  sent  to  Vienna  to  com- 
plete his  musical  education.  His  general 


Ludwig  Van  Beethoven.  103 

education  had  been  almost  totally  neglected, 
and  this  defect  was  never  wholly  remedied, 
Beethoven  being  more  or  less  illiterate  all 
his  days.  In  Vienna  he  met  Mozart  and  is 
said  to  have  taken  a  few  lessons  of  him.  It 
is  stated  that  Mozart,  on  hearing  the  youth 
of  seventeen  years  improvise,  cried  out, 
"  Pay  attention  to  this  youngster ;  he  will  yet 
make  a  noise  in  the  world  !  " 

But  the  mother  at  home  was  dying,  and 
the  sad  event  drew  Beethoven  back  to  Bonn, 
where  a  miserable  existence  awaited  him ; 
the  helpful  housewife  dead,  the  family  was 
left  in  the  palsied  hands  of  the  drunken 
father,  whom  Beethoven  more  than  once 
had  to  rescue  from  the  hands  of  the  police. 
The  elector  took  cognizance  of  the  wretched 
plight  of  the  family,  and  ordered  that  part  of 
the  salary  of  the  father  should  be  paid  to  the 
son,  that  they  might  not  be  reduced  to  utter 
starvation,  and  from  eighteen  to  twenty-two 
we  find  the  young  Beethoven  practically  the 


IO4    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

head  of  his  little  family,  checking  the  father 
as  far  as  possible  and  educating  the  two 
brothers.  In  1792  the  burden  was  some- 
what lightened  by  the  death  of  the  shiftless 
parent.  In  the  report  of  this  event  to  the 
elector  the  terse  statement  is  made,  "  Bee- 
thoven is  dead,  —  it  will  be  a  great  loss  to 
the  tax  on  liquors  !  " 

But  now  there  came  another  beneficial 
change  in  the  young  composer's  life ;  he 
began  to  make  friends  among  the  aristoc- 
racy, and,  strange  as  it  may  appear,  consider- 
ing Beethoven's  uncouth  manners  and  lack 
of  education,  these  high-born  friends  were 
loyal  to  him  through  all  his  days,  and  his 
circle  of  noble  acquaintances  grew  constantly 
wider.  The  first  of  these  new  friends  were 
Count  Waldstein  (to  whom  the  great  sonata, 
Opus  53,  is  dedicated)  and  the  Breunings,  con- 
sisting of  the  widowed  mother,  her  sons,  and 
her  daughter  Eleonora.  He  taught  the  lat- 
ter music,  and  she  instructed  him  in  general 


Ludwig  Van  Beethoven.  105 

literature,  so  that  the  educational  defects 
spoken  of  above  were  in  some  degree  amel- 
iorated. 

He  fell  in  love  with  Eleonora,  of  course ; 
he  was  continually  falling  in  love,  but  the 
reader  must  by  no  means  imagine  the  slight- 
est tinge  of  immorality  in  this ;  these  ideal 
affections  were  often  the  inspiration  of  Bee- 
thoven's loftiest  music,  and  the  Seventh 
Symphony,  the  Eighth,  the  so-called  "  Moon- 
light Sonata,"  the  beautiful  song  "  Adelaide," 
and  much  other  of  his  music,  may  be  traced 
to  the  awakening  of  romantic  emotions 
through  female  influence.  The  Countess 
Erdoedy,  Babette  de  Keglevics,  Baroness 
Ertmann,  Bettina  Brentano,  and  several 
others  were  in  turn  the  objects  of  Beetho- 
ven's pure  affection. 

There  was,  however,  one  deep  and  most 
earnest  love  in  the  composer's  life,  which  is 
somewhat  wrapped  in  mystery.  After  his 
death,  three  letters,  full  of  the  most  devoted 


io6    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

passion,  in  his  own  handwriting,  were  found 
in  a  secret  drawer  of  his  desk.  Thayer,  in 
his  great  biography  of  Beethoven,  ruthlessly 
demolishes  some  of  the  romance  which  has 
attached  to  these,  but  it  is  supposed  that 
Giuletta  Guicciardi,  who  afterwards  married 
Count  Gallenberg,  was  the  object  of  these 
impassioned  epistles. 

As  every  lady  to  whom  Beethoven  paid 
his  addresses  accepted  them  either  with 
complaisance  or  with  deeper  emotion,  it  has 
been  stated  that  our  deaf,  brusque,  and  ugly 
composer  imagined  himself  somewhat  of  a 
heart-breaker.  He  sometimes  clothed  him- 
self in  the  height  of  fashion,  which  made  the 
contrast  with  his  ordinary  untidy  appearance 
only  the  more  marked.  Franz  Lachner  and 
Doctor  Hiller  have  described  to  the  author 
the  personal  appearance  of  Beethoven  (whom 
they  had  seen)  as  that  of  a  stunted  giant, 
possessing  a  picturesque  ugliness  that  had  a 
peculiar  charm. 


Ludwig  Van  Beethoven. 

In  1792  Beethoven  left  Bonn  for  good. 
The  elector  still  remained  his  friend  and 
assisted  him  towards  a  thorough  education 
in  Vienna.  Three  years  of  student  life  in 
the  great  musical  metropolis  now  followed, 
at  the  end  of  which  time  Beethoven  had  a 
good  reputation  as  a  pianist  and  an  impro- 
visatore.  He  took  lessons  from  Haydn,  but 
we  can  imagine  that  the  elder  composer, 
fresh  from  great  triumphs  in  London,  had 
no  very  great  enthusiasm  for  the  instruction 
of  a  rather  stubborn  young  man  at  twenty 
cents  per  lesson.  One  day,  on  his  way  home 
from  one  of  the  lessons,  Beethoven  met  a 
young  musician  named  Schenck,  and,  show- 
ing him  his  exercises  for  the  day,  was  as- 
tounded to  find  that  Haydn  had  left  some 
twenty  errors  uncorrected.  Although  he 
continued  with  Haydn,  he  at  once  began  tak- 
ing lessons  secretly  of  Schenck  also.  He 
was  a  sore  trial  to  the  rather  formal  Haydn, 
whom  he  often  contradicted,  and  who  called 


ro8     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

him  "  The  Great  Mogul "  because  of  his 
imperious  ways. 

When,  a  short  time  after,  Beethoven  dedi- 
cated his  set  of  three  sonatas,  Opus  2,  to 
Haydn,  the  latter  asked  why  he  did  not  add 
"  Pupil  of  Haydn  "  to  his  name  on  the  title. 
"  Because  I  never  learned  anything  of 
you,"  was  the  rough  reply. 

His  lessons  with  the  great  contrapuntist 
Albrechtsberger  were  also  marked  with  such 
bold  deviations  from  the  paths  of  implicit 
obedience  to  rule  that  the  old  teacher 
warned  his  other  pupils  to  keep  away  from 
Beethoven,  as  he  would  be  sure  to  lead  them 
astray  in  their  composition  work.  Spite  of 
these  rough  ways  and  imperious  manners, 
however,  Beethoven  added  constantly  to  the 
circle  of  his  titled  admirers  and  friends. 
Prince  Lichnowsky  and  his  wife  were  among 
the  first  of  these,  and  his  Opus  I,  a  set  of 
trios,  is  dedicated  to  this  nobleman.  This 
work  was  published  in  1795,  which  year  may 


Ludwig  Van  Beethoven.  109 

be  taken  as  the  beginning  of  Beethoven's 
earnest  career  in  composition,  although  his 
symphonic  composition  began  almost  five 
years  later,  the  first  symphony  being  written 
in  1799,  and  first  performed  in  1800. 

His  works  paid  him  well  from  the  very 
beginning,  all  the  aristocracy  of  Vienna  be- 
ing glad  to  subscribe  to  each  new  composi- 
tion of  the  young  composer ;  yet  the  true 
Beethoven,  the  iconoclast  in  instrumental 
music,  the  giant  of  thematic  development, 
was  not  yet  existent ;  it  was  only  in  1 804, 
when  the  "Heroic  Symphony"  was  com- 
posed, that  the  world  began  to  recognize 
that  a  musical  Titan  had  arisen.  From  the 
very  first  Beethoven  took  the  utmost  care 
in  the  revision  and  perfection  of  his  works, 
and  this  is  the  more  remarkable,  when  we 
remember  that  he  was  an  absolute  master 
of  improvisation.  Truly,  in  the  study  of 
Beethoven's  mode  of  composition,  in  his 
constant  improvements  upon  his  first  in- 


no     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

spiration  in  each  of  his  compositions,  one 
realizes  the  truth  of  the  saying  that  "  Genius 
is  only  a  capacity  for  taking  pains." 

In  1 80 1,  before  he  had  revealed  the  true 
Beethoven  to  the  world,  before  his  actual 
career  as  composer  had  fairly  begun,  deaf- 
ness began  to  settle  down  upon  him ; 
whether  this  was  a  calamity  to  the  world 
may  be  doubted,  for  it  made  the  proud, 
sensitive  nature  more  introspective  than 
ever,  and  it  was  through  this  self-commun- 
ing that  his  works  attained  that  sombre 
and  earnest  vein  that  cannot  be  often  found 
in  his  earliest  numbers.  Yet  it  is  indicative 
of  the  nobility  of  Beethoven's  nature  that  he 
never  becomes  lachrymose  or  morbid ;  his 
darkest  compositions  (unless  it  be  a  funeral 
march)  end  with  either  hope  or  tranquillity. 

The  coda  of  the  first  movement  of  the 
"  Sonata  Pathetique,"  for  example,  after 
the  most  tumultuous  struggle,  ends  with 
resolution  and  vigor,  the  wonderful  brood- 


Ludwig  Van  Beethoven.  in 

ing  and  groping  which  characterizes  the 
slow  movement  of  the  sonata,  Opus  106 
(the  longest  sonata  ever  written  for  piano, 
a  veritable  symphony),  ends  with  an  attain- 
ment of  peace.  The  bitterness  in  Beetho- 
ven's works  is  never  without  its  antidote,  and 
one  might  well  apply  Goethe's  words  to  this 
musician : 

"  Wer  nie  sein  Brod  mit  Thranen  ass, 
Wer  nie  die  kummervolle  Nachte 
Auf  seinem  Bette  weinend  sass, 

Der  kenn't  euch  nicht,  ihr  Himm'lische  Machte." 

"  Who  ne'er  with  tears  hath  ate  his  bread, 

Who  never  through  the  night's  still  hours 
Sat  hopeless,  weeping  on  his  bed, 

He  knows  ye  not,  ye  heav'nly  powers ! " 

But  Beethoven  was  essentially  aggressive 
and  combative  also,  and  this  quality  shows 
itself  gloriously  in  such  works  as  the 
"Heroic"  or  the  Fifth  Symphonies,  in 
the  "  Sonata  Pathetique,"  or  in  the  "  Eg- 
mont "  music. 


112     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

His  humor  was  of  fierce  or  grotesque 
style,  very  different  from  the  dainty  play- 
fulness of  a  Mendelssohn  ;  he  was  the  very 
Aristophanes  of  music  at  times,  as  one  can 
readily  see  in  the  Sixth  or  Eighth  Sym- 
phonies, or  in  most  of  his  scherzos. 

This  vein  of  brusquerie  was  a  salient  part 
of  the  composer's  character,  and  not  always 
a  pleasant  side,  as  the  cook  found  out  who 
brought  him  some  rather  stale  eggs  from 
market,  and  was  pelted  with  them,  one  by 
one ;  or  the  waiter  in  the  Viennese  restau- 
rant, who  received  a  soup  shower-bath  upon 
serving  him  some  tepid  soup. 

Beethoven  was  arbitrary  in  the  greatest 
degree  ;  although  he  sometimes  played  a  jest 
upon  others,  he  would  not  allow  such  a  lib- 
erty to  be  taken  with  himself ;  thus  he  once 
asked  Himmel,  after  that  pianist  had  been 
improvising  for  over  fifteen  minutes,  "  When 
are  you  going  to  begin  ?  "  but  when  Himmel, 
some  time  after,  returned  the  jest  by  inform- 


Ludwig  Van  Beethoven.  113 

ing  him  that  a  lantern  had  been  invented  for 
the  blind,  and  Beethoven  had  swallowed  the 
bait,  he  was  furious  on  learning  that  he  had 
been  hoaxed. 

But  down  deep  in  the  bizarre  and  tyran- 
nical nature  there  was  a  lofty  ideal,  a  love  of 
liberty,  a  belief  in  the  universal  brotherhood 
of  mankind,  and  not  only  does  the  document 
sometimes  called  "  Beethoven's  will  "  show 
this,  but  it  has  become  music  in  the  over- 
ture to  "  Egmont,"  in  the  "  Heroic  Sym- 
phony," and  in  the  Ninth  Symphony. 

In  1 80 1  his  deafness  began  to  trouble 
him,  and  from  this  early  epoch  —  he  was 
now  thirty-one  years  of  age  —  there  was  con- 
stant doctoring  of  one  sort  or  another.  At 
this  time  he  wrote :  "  I  will  try  to  defy 
fate ;  I  may  be  most  miserable  at  times, 
but  I  will  not  allow  destiny  to  drag  me 
down." 

His  quarrels  were  unending,  so  that  even 
the  Breunings,  who  loved  him  tenderly,  were 


114    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

at  times  sorely  put  to  it  to  manage  him ;  he 
was  constantly  changing  his  abode,  some- 
times forgetting  to  notify  his  landlord  of 
his  intention,  so  that  lawsuits  resulted. 

His  one  great  opera,  "  Fidelio,"  finished 
in  1805,  brought  him  many  annoyances  at 
first,  for  he  never  could  be  as  willing  a  pur- 
veyor for  the  stage  singers  as  Mozart  had 
been.  His  pension,  allowed  by  the  Elector 
of  Bonn,  was  stopped  at  about  this  time,  and 
this  caused  him  to  redouble  his  efforts  in 
composition.  Three  of  his  noble  admirers, 
the  Archduke  Rudolph,  Prince  Lobkowitz, 
and  Prince  Kinsky,  now  banded  together, 
and  secured  to  the  composer  an  annuity  of 
four  thousand  florins,  but  this  subsequently 
became  much  less  through  the  depreciation 
of  the  Austrian  currency. 

In  1812  we  find  the  composer,  suffering 
from  swollen  feet  and  from  headaches,  tak- 
ing the  bath  cure  at  Toplitz  and  other 
resorts ;  during  this  period  he  met  Amalia 


Ludwig  Van  Beethoven  115 

Seebald,  a  beautiful  soprano,  and  fell  in  love 
with  her.  It  is  certain  that  the  affection 
was  returned,  but  no  biographer  has  ever 
ascertained  the  reason  that  no  marriage 
resulted ;  it  is  pleasant  to  know  that  the 
Seventh  and  Eighth  Symphonies  were  the 
outcome  of  this  episode,  and  one  searches 
in  vain  for  a  trace  of  the  invalid  in  the 
joyous  music  of  the  latter  work. 

These  were  the  stirring  times  of  the 
French  wars,  most  wretched  days  for  the 
development  of  the  fine  arts,  yet  Beethoven 
seems  to  have  kept  his  head  well  above 
water ;  his  compositions  were  sought  for  in 
every  part  of  Germany,  France,  and  England, 
and  a  concert  of  his  compositions  given 
before  six  thousand  people  in  Vienna  is 
something  memorable  for  that  era  of  small 
audiences.  He  was  made  honorary  mem- 
ber of  many  European  academies,  Vienna 
bestowed  upon  him  the  freedom  of  the 
city,  and  the  Empress  of  Russia  sent  him 


n6     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

a  large  sum  of  money  (nearly  five  thousand 
dollars)  as  a  present. 

Beethoven  was  certainly  honored  during 
his  lifetime  much  beyond  the  homage  which 
fate  allowed  to  fall  to  the  lot  of  other  com- 
posers in  his  day.  But  there  were  troubles 
enough,  too ;  the  deafness  was  growing  worse, 
and  now,  to  crown  all,  his  brother  Caspar 
died  and  left  his  son  to  Beethoven's  charge ; 
the  mother  declining  to  accede  to  this  ar- 
rangement, another  lawsuit  was  added  to 
Beethoven's  collection  of  legal  episodes.  It 
was  during  this  lawsuit  that  the  court  mis- 
took Beethoven  for  a  nobleman,  because  of 
the  "Van"  in  his  name  ("Von  "  in  the  Ger- 
man indicates  noble  descent,  while  "  Van  "  in 
the  Dutch,  and  Beethoven  was  of  Dutch  or 
Flemish  descent,  does  not  necessarily  do  so), 
and  when  the  query  was  put  to  the  com- 
poser, "Are  you  of  noble  family?"  he  pointed 
to  his  head  and  his  heart  and  replied,  "My 
nobility  is  here  and  here  !  " 


Ludwig  Van  Beethoven.  117 

The  nephew  became  a  constant  thorn  in 
the  flesh  to  Beethoven;  as  he  grew  up  he 
neglected  all  study  and  was  of  irregular 
habits  and  generally  unreliable ;  he  entered 
the  University  as  a  student  of  philology,  and 
failed  in  his  examinations ;  he  attempted  sui- 
cide and  failed  in  that  also ;  he  was  arrested, 
finally,  and  ordered  out  of  Vienna,  and  then 
entered  the  army ;  but  by  this  time,  his  gen- 
erous uncle  being  dead,  he  could  trouble  him 
no  longer. 

The  homage  of  the  world  still  continued ; 
in  1818  the  Broadwoods  of  London  sent 
Beethoven  a  present  of  a  grand  piano ;  in 
1822  the  Emperor  of  Russia,  the  King  of 
Prussia,  and  the  King  of  France  were  among 
the  subscribers  to  the  edition  of  his  great 
mass,  at  over  one  hundred  dollars  per  copy, 
and  an  offer  from  the  Philharmonic  Society 
of  London  (accompanied  by  fifty  pounds  ster- 
ling) was  received  for  a  new  symphony  to  be 
first  played  by  them. 


1 1 8    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

The  quarrels  also  continued,  and  one  by 
one  Beethoven  managed  to  alienate  his 
friends,  and  Schindler,  Maelzel  (who  fre- 
quently deserved  it),  Stephen  Breuning,  and 
others  were  made  the  recipients  of  the 
composer's  unreasonable  wrath ;  but  under- 
neath his  furious  temper  and  illiberal  ways 
he  cherished  the  constant  ideal  of  univer- 
sal brotherhood  and  love ;  while  the  Real 
was  leading  him  into  every  kind  of  strife, 
the  Ideal  was  crystallizing  into  the  Ninth 
Symphony. 

Beethoven's  first  idea  was  to  have  the 
great  mass  and  the  Ninth  Symphony  per- 
formed in  Berlin,  but  an  address  came  to 
him  from  the  leading  noblemen  of  Vienna 
begging  him  to  allow  these  works  to  have 
their  first  hearing  in  the  city  of  which  he 
was  a  citizen.  The  composer  was  profoundly 
moved  by  the  honor,  and  the  /th  of  May, 
1824,  beheld  the  great  performance.  It  had 
been  preceded  by  the  usual  annoyances  ;  the 


Ludwig  Van  Beethoven.  119 

vocalists  were  earnest  remonstrants,  since 
the  finale  of  the  work,  although  most  lofty 
in  its  musical  ideas,  is  very  unsingable.  The 
emperor  was  absent  from  the  performance, 
but  all  of  the  nobility  of  the  capital  were 
present  and  the  house  was  crowded.  Bee- 
thoven was  at  this  time  totally  deaf ;  when 
the  symphony  was  ended  he  did  not  hear 
the  wild  applause  of  the  great  audience,  but 
stood  gazing  at  the  orchestra;  one  of  the 
soloists  was  obliged  to  take  him  by  the 
shoulders  and  turn  him  around,  that  he 
might  acknowledge  the  enthusiasm ;  in  that 
instant  it  came  home  to  every  auditor  that 
the  creator  of  the  great  tonal  work  had  not 
heard  a  note  of  its  performance,  and  by  wav- 
ing of  hats  and  handkerchiefs  they  caused 
him  at  least  to  see  their  appreciation. 

The  repetition  of  the  work  a  little  later 
was  a  financial  failure,  and,  as  usual,  the 
composer  visited  his  unjust  wrath  upon 
his  friends. 


I2O    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

It  was  his  last  great  symphony ;  in  1 826 
he  went  to  his  brother  Johann  at  Gneixen- 
dorff  with  his  unworthy  nephew ;  this  visit 
probably  laid  the  foundation  of  his  final  ill- 
ness, for  his  stingy  sister-in-law  put  him  in 
a  bleak  room  and   refused   him  a  fire,  the 
brother    presented    a    bill    for    board,    the 
nephew  was  incorrigible ;  therefore  Beetho- 
ven suddenly  set  out  for  Vienna  in  an  open 
conveyance.      He   had   already  exhibited   a 
tendency  towards  dropsy,  and  his  dosing  him- 
self with  strong  drink  did  not  improve  this, 
while  now  it  became  complicated   with   an 
inflammation   of   the   lungs.      Nevertheless, 
the  composer  worked  on  faithfully,  writing 
his  last  string  quartettes.     The  finale  of  the 
B-flat  quartette  was  originally  a  very  difficult 
and  labored  fugue ;  all  the  critics  attacked 
this  fugue  as  being  an  artificial  affair,  and 
for  once  Beethoven  agreed  with  them  ;  he 
caused    the    fugal    finale    to    be    published 
separately  as  Opus    133,  and  his   last   com- 


L^ldw^g  Van  Beethoven.  121 

plete  composition  was  the  present  finale  of 
this  string  quartette,  Opus  1 30.  A  fragment 
of  a  string  quintette  which  he  was  com- 
posing for  Artaria,  the  publisher,  was  prob- 
ably the  last  actual  notation  penned  by  the 
composer. 

He  was  now  living,  a  very  sick  man,  in 
the  Schwarzspanier  Haus  in  Vienna.  He 
had  offended  his  previous  physicians  so  that 
they  would  have  no  more  of  him,  wherefore 
he  called  in  a  rather  unskilled  doctor,  Waw- 
ruch  by  name.  Dropsy  was  now  asserting 
itself  rapidly ;  he  was  tapped  by  Doctor 
Seibert,  and  jokingly  alluded  to  the  fact 
that  they  might  draw  water  from  his  body 
but  not  from  his  pen.  But  matters  were 
rapidly  getting  serious,  on  hearing  which 
Doctor  Malfatti,  one  of  the  physicians 
whom  Beethoven  had  insulted  during  previ- 
ous attendance,  consented  to  come  into  the 
case.  Beethoven  welcomed  him  warmly,  and 
now  heaped  contumely  upon  Doctor  Waw- 


122    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

ruch,  whom  he  called  "  an  ass  "  whenever 
he  appeared. 

He  feared  poverty  in  these  last  days, 
although  he  had  several  bank  shares  and 
other  available  capital  concealed  in  his 
room.  He  appealed  to  the  London  Phil- 
harmonic for  funds,  and  this  society  promptly 
sent  him  a  hundred  pounds  and  promised 
more  should  it  be  required. 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  he  grew  to 
appreciate  Schubert  while  on  his  death-bed ; 
he  looked  upon  a  picture  of  Haydn's  birth- 
place and  said :  "  Strange  that  so  great  a 
man  should  have  been  born  in  such  a  hovel," 
and  he  spent  some  time  looking  through 
a  great'  edition  of  Handel's  works  that  had 
been  presented  to  him,  saying,  "Das  ist 
das  Wahre,"  -  —  "  That  is  the  true  work." 

The  triumvirate  of  great  symphonic  writers, 
Haydn,  Mozart,  and  Beethoven,  were  Catho- 
lics, but  with  Beethoven  this  was  not  so  de- 
vout a  matter  as  with  Haydn  and  (in  some 


Ludwig  Van  Beethoven.  123 

degree)  with  Mozart,  yet  he  received  the 
final  sacraments  of  the  Church  before  the 
final  agony  set  in.  The  very  elements 
seemed  to  make  the  occasion  memorable ; 
as  he  was  passing  away  a  wild  tempest  of 
thunder  and  hail  burst  over  the  city ;  sud- 
denly there  was  a  blinding  flash  of  light- 
ning and  a  deafening  roar  of  thunder ; 
Beethoven,  who  had  been  lying  comatose, 
heard  the  tumult  and  shook  his  fist  as  if 
giving  a  last  defiance  to  fate,  and  with  the 
reverberations  of  that  mighty  peal  the  soul 
of  the  composer  went  forth.  He  died 
February  26,  1827. 

The  funeral  was  memorable  ;  all  of  Vienna 
seemed  to  be  present  to  do  honor  to  the 
dead  Beethoven ;  the  crowds  were  so  im- 
mense that  the  soldiers  were  obliged  to 
force  a  passage  for  the  procession ;  Hum- 
mel, Kreutzer,  Czerny,  Lablache,  and  Schu- 
bert were  in  that  cortege ;  poems  and 
addresses  were  read,  a  choir  sang  on  the 


124    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

march,  and  four  trombones  played  "  Equali " 
by  the  composer  who  .  had  gone  to  his 
rest. 

We  have  already  stated  that  the  glory  of 
Beethoven  is  in  the  fact  that  his  music  is 
deeply  emotional,  yet  awakens  the  intellectual 
faculties  by  development  of  figures,  by  archi- 
tectural structure,  by  symmetrical  relation- 
ship of  parts.  In  his  orchestral  works  he 
was  absolutely  a  liberator,  and  the  con- 
trabass, horns,  kettledrums,  trombones,  and 
many  other  instruments  seem  first  to  fulfil 
their  entire  functions  in  his  great  works.  He 
was  distinctly  an  orchestral  mind ;  even  his 
later  string  quartettes  and  his  piano  sonata, 
Opus  1 06,  are  orchestral  compositions  in 
disguise. 

His  mode  of  composition  was  peculiar. 
Mozart  often  thought  out  his  compositions 
while  playing  billiards,  Gluck  with  a  particu- 
lar ring  upon  his  finger,  Scarlatti  with  his 
cat  on  his  shoulder,  Wagner  with  his  sur- 


Ludwig  Van  Beethoven.  12$ 

roundings  upholstered  to  fit  his  subject,  but 
Beethoven  loved  to  think  out  his  composi- 
tions in  God's  open  air ;  he  took  long  walks 
into  the  country,  carrying  his  memorandum 
book  with  him,  and  as  the  ideas  came  to  him 
he  would  jot  them  down  in  a  hideous  and 
hasty  scrawl.  These  memorandum  books 
have  been  collected  by  Nottebohm  and  de- 
ciphered after  herculean  labor ;  they  show 
most  convincingly  how  seldom  Beethoven 
was  satisfied  with  his  first  thoughts.  If 
he  was  composing  at  his  desk  and  some 
stray  thought  came  to  his  mind,  he  would 
jot  it  down  upon  a  scrap  of  paper  and  place 
it  in  a  basket  by  his  side  for  use  at  some 
future  time.  Sometimes  he  had  several  of 
these  baskets  full  of  musical  jottings,  01 
which  of  course  he  never  used  a  hundredth 
part.  He  thought  out  a  good  portion  of  his 
Ninth  Symphony  in  a  tree  in  Schonbrunn, 
near  Vienna.  Lachner  has  informed  the 
author  that  in  Vienna  the  inhabitants  all 


126    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

knew  and  loved  the  composer,  and  were 
accustomed  to  see  him  stand  upon  the  side- 
walk, or  even  in  the  street,  writing,  if  some 
new  thought  had  presented  itself  suddenly 
to  his  mind.  He  was  naturally  not  so  well 
known  outside  of  Vienna,  and,  as  his  appear- 
ance was  often  very  untidy,  he  was  once 
arrested  as  a  vagrant  on  one  of  his  long 
walks.  Sometimes  he  would  meet  a  party 
of  his  noble  acquaintances  while  pushing 
along  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  and  in  such  a 
case  he  would  march  on  without  attempt- 
ing to  make  himself  presentable.  The  poet 
Goethe,  the  perfection  of  a  courtier,  was 
horrified  by  his  lack  of  respect  for  the  aris- 
tocracy, while  Beethoven  was  indignant  at 
Goethe's  humble  attitude  towards  princes. 
"  Mann  muss  sie  imponieren,"  —  "  One  must 
be  imposing  with  them,"  -  —  said  Beethoven, 
referring  to  his  manners  with  the  nobility. 

A  strange  compound  altogether :  sturdy  as 
his  Flemish  ancestors  had  been,  a  shy  and 


Ludwig  Van  Beethoven.  127 

awkward  nature  intensified  in  its  self-dis- 
trust by  the  greatest  of  all  afflictions  to 
a  composer,  —  deafness  ;  tender-hearted  yet 
quarrelling  with  everybody ;  most  liberal  in 
his  ideals,  most  illiberal  in  his  actions ;  most 
sensitive  yet  most  overbearing,  —  one  must 
seek  the  key  to  this  riddle  in  the  music 
which  he  has  left  as  a  legacy  to  the  world ; 
here  we  have  the  real  Beethoven,  fighting  a 
lifelong  battle  with  destiny,  never  morbid, 
never  yielding  to  despair,  humorous  at  times, 
but  in  a  rough  and  untamed  way,  loving  lib- 
erty and  believing  ever  in  the  brotherhood  of 
all  mankind,  a  model  in  art  for  all  the  coming 
ages. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

FRANZ    PETER    SCHUBERT. 

AMONG  the  various  forms  employed  in 
musical  composition,  opera  and  oratorio  may 
be  classed  as  the  highest,  the  symphony  as 
the  most  developed  instrumental  structure, 
and  the  fugue  as  the  most  perfect  presen- 
tation of  logic  in  tones  ;  but  as  in  poetry  one 
does  not  always  demand  epics,  so  in  music 
one  may  desire  a  form  which  shall  be  less 
elaborate  than  the  above,  which  shall  yet  be 
sufficiently  dramatic,  powerful,  and  complete 
to  form  a  satisfactory  art  work.  In  vocal 
music  this  form  has  been  found  in  the  Lied, 
a  style  of  composition  of  which  Schubert  may 
justly  claim  to  be  the  father,  although  Schu- 
mann, Robert  Franz,  and  to  some  extent 
128 


FRANZ    SCHUBERT 


Franz  Peter  Schubert.  1 29 

Brahms,  have  also  glorified  the  repertoire  in 
this  direction.  Yet,  as  all  the  great  compos- 
ers, except  Chopin,  have  won  their  laurels  in 
various  paths  of  composition,  so  Schubert's 
reputation,  although  resting  chiefly  upon  the 
production  of  these  vocal  gems,  was  also 
gained  in  instrumental,  choral,  and  other 
schools  of  work. 

Schubert  was  the  most  poetic,  the  most 
spontaneous  creator  among  all  the  composers. 
In  him  we  come  as  near  as  possible  to  the 
fount  of  inspiration,  for  he  penned  his  works 
as  rapidly  as  the  thoughts  came  to  him,  and 
rarely  made  any  alterations  afterwards,  being 
in  this  the  opposite  of  Beethoven. 

He  was  born  in  Vienna,  in  the  outlying 
district  of  Lichtenthal  (the  house  is  now  No. 
54  Nussdorfer  Street  and  bears  a  tablet),  Jan- 
uary 31,  1797.  He  was  the  son  of  a  poor 
schoolmaster  who  had  eighteen  other  children. 
We  have  compared  Schubert  to  Mozart,  in  a 
preceding  chapter,  in  his  poverty,  in  his  fer- 


130     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

tility  of  invention  and  in  his  short  life,  but 
Schubert  was  probably  the  poorest  of  all  the 
composers  who  waged  the  combat  with  neg- 
lect and  poverty.  The  evil  fairies  all  seem 
to  have  showered  their  gifts  into  his  cradle, 
for  he  was  not  only  poor,  but  ugly  in  appear- 
ance and  near-sighted  as  well.  But  one  good 
fairy  was  there  who  gave  to  him  a  sweet 
voice  and  a  love  of  music. 

After  early  instruction  received  from  his 
father  and  brother,  the  pleasing  voice  of  the 
boy  led  to  his  admission  to  the  parish  choir, 
where  the  director,  Holzer,  gave  him  some 
further  instruction.  This  instruction  was  not 
very  far-reaching,  however,  although  it  served 
to  bring  his  genius  into  early  recognition. 

"  Whatever  I  try  to  teach  him  he  seems  to 
have  known  before,"  said  Choirmaster  Holzer, 
and  soon  after  the  lad  was  pushed  as  a 
chorister  into  the  Imperial  Chapel. 

This  promotion  caused  him  to  become  a 
member  of  the  school  attached  to  the  chapel, 


Franz  Peter  Schubert.  13 1 

the  so-called  "  Konvict-Schule."  This  brought 
him  in  contact  with  Salieri,  the  eminent  com- 
poser, who  seems,  however,  not  to  have  given 
him  any  real  instruction  beyond  a  few  words 
of  advice  occasionally.  Ruzicka,  teacher  of 
thorough-bass,  gave  him  a  few  lessons.  At 
the  Imperial  school  the  lad  underwent  a 
thorough  course  in  starvation,  for  there  is 
a  letter  extant  in  which  he  begs  a  few 
kreutzers  (pennies)  from  his  brother  to  ease 
the  pangs  of  hunger,  which  arose  between 
the  two  meals  which  were  vouchsafed  to  the 
growing  lads  of  the  Konvict. 

His  musical  enthusiasm  at  this  time  knew 
no  bounds,  but  he  was  limited  by  a  very 
peculiar  fetter,  he  was  unable  to  buy  music 
paper.  A  comrade  somewhat  older  than  him- 
self, and  in  much  better  circumstances  (who 
afterwards  became  Baron  Von  Spaun),  for- 
tunately discovered  this  paper  famine,  and 
generously  relieved  it. 

In  1813  there  came  a  change  of  voice,  and 


1 3  2    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

the  sixteen-year-old  lad  was  obliged  to  leave 
the  school.  At  eighteen  years  we  find  him 
becoming  an  assistant  school-teacher  in  order 
that  he  might  escape  the  conscription  which 
was  peculiarly  stringent  at  this  time.  He 
had  already  composed  some  ambitious  works 
at  this  epoch  ;  at  seventeen  he  had  written 
his  first  mass,  and  his  pious  father  was  so 
delighted  with  this  that  he  scraped  together 
money  enough  to  purchase  his  talented  son  a 
new  piano.  He  had  attempted  an  opera,  but 
the  score  of  this  work  is  now  only  a  fragment, 
because  he  left  it  as  a  pledge  for  a  debt  with 
a  friend,  Hiittenbrenner,  and  when,  years 
afterwards,  people  began  searching  for  the 
mislaid  compositions  of  the  master,  they 
found  that  the  servant  had  lit  the  fires  with 
the  whole  first  act  and  part  of  the  second  ! 
Many  of  Schubert's  compositions  were  lost 
in  such  a  manner,  and  the  search  for  them  is 
still  going  on  in  Vienna.  Schumann,  Sir 
George  Grove,  and,  at  the  present  time,  a 


Franz  Peter  Schubert.  133 

rich  Roumanian,  named  Dumba,  have  un- 
earthed some  of  these  lost  compositions,  and 
there  is  reason  to  hope  for  more. 

At  eighteen  Schubert  wrote  the  "  Erl- 
king,"  producing  it  at  a  white  heat,  in  a 
single  day.  The  author  of  the  words,  the 
poet  Goethe,  never  appreciated  the  glorious 
setting,  and  in  fact,  seems  to  have  had  a  very 
defective  taste  in  music,  although  gifted  in  so 
many  other  directions. 

At  this  time  Schubert  began  making  pleas- 
ant acquaintances  among  artists  and  musi- 
cians. Among  the  first  of  these  was  the  poet 
Mayrhofer,  who  wrote  many  subjects  for  his 
musical  setting.  Schubert  was  a  genial  and 
chatty  nature,  while  Mayrhofer  had  a  vein  of 
melancholy  in  his  disposition  that  afterwards 
led  to  insanity  and  suicide ;  the  two  seemed 
attracted  to  each  other  by  the  law  of  opposites. 

Soon  after  there  came  another  friend  who 
rescued  him  from  the  drudgery  of  his  school- 
teaching.  Franz  Von  Schober  was  a  Swede, 


134    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

fairly  well-to-do,  and  had  accidentally  seen 
some  of  Schubert's  songs  before  he  came  to 
Vienna  ;  he  conceived  a  great  admiration  for 
their  unknown  author,  and  when  he  found 
him  a  young  man  of  about  his  own  age,  he 
at  once  suggested  that  Schubert  share  his 
apartments,  and  try  to  find  music  pupils. 
This  was  done,  and  for  many  years  the  two 
were  almost  inseparable. 

Von  Schober  seems  to  have  thoroughly 
understood  Schubert's  nature  and  gifts,  and 
being  a  poet  also,  he  gave  him  verses  for 
musical  setting  that  brought  out  the  com- 
poser's best  powers.  There  is  one  of  these 
poems  which  so  perfectly  reflects  Schubert's 
own  life  (it  is  set  to  music  by  him)  that  it 
may  be  reproduced  here  in  a  translated  form. 

"TO   MUSIC." 

"  Thou  Holy  Art !   How  oft  in  sad,  gray  hours, 
When  Life  seemed  dull  and  hopeless  unto  me, 

Hast  thou  upheld  me  with  thy  mighty  powers, 
And  oped  a  purer,  better  world  to  me. 


Frans  Peter  Schubert.  135 

"  Oft  has  a  tone  from  thy  great  harp  immortal, 
Smoothed  out  the  wrinkles  from  my  troubled  brow. 

Unlocked  for  me  of  Paradise  the  portal ; 
Thou  blessed  Art,  I  thank  thee  for  it  now !  " 

Von  Schober  was  also  able  to  introduce 
Schubert  to  certain  artists  who  were  likely 
to  prove  of  great  service  to  him  in  his  work  ; 
among  these  was  the  famous  baritone  singer, 
Johann  Michael  Vogl,  just  the  cultivated 
musician  to  carry  Schubert's  standard  out 
into  the  world.  At  first  he  held  aloof  from 
making  the  acquaintance  of  a  young  com- 
poser who  might  bore  him  with  weak  com- 
positions, but  he  very  soon  discovered  that 
Schubert  was  not  of  this  class,  and  after  he 
had  heard  some  of  his  lieder  he  craved  more 
of  them. 

The  rapidity  with  which  Schubert  poured 
forth  these  songs  was  remarkable ;  if  a 
thought  came  to  him  at  night  he  would 
spring  from  his  bed  and  at  once  write  it  out. 
One  night  he  thus  spontaneously  composed 


136    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

"Die  Forelle"  (The  Trout),  and  reached 
sleepily  for  the  sand-bottle,  then  used  instead 
of  blotting-paper,  to  strew  sand  over  the 
copy,  but  grasped  the  z«/£-bottle  instead ; 
the  result  was  that  a  tremendous  blot  was 
made  over  half  of  the  completed  manuscript ; 
he  was,  however,  too  drowsy  to  rewrite  the 
work  at  the  time,  and  the  next  day,  as  was 
his  wont,  he  cared  too  little  about  a  com- 
pleted song  to  take  further  pains  with  it. 
He  sometimes  forgot  his  own  compositions ; 
once,  for  example,  he  sent  Vogl  one  of  his 
songs,  which  the  baritone  found  too  high  for 
his  voice ;  Vogl,  therefore,  sent  it  to  a  copy- 
ist to  have  it  transposed ;  a  short  time  after- 
ward Schubert  saw  the  work,  written  in  a 
strange  hand,  and  ran  it  over.  "  Look 
here,  Vogl,"  he  cried ;  "  this  is  a  very  good 
song !  Who  wrote  it  ?  " 

There  are  many  anecdotes  regarding  rapid- 
ity of  composition  connected  with  this  or 
that  composer,  but  many  of  them,  when 


Franz  Peter  Schubert.  137 

sifted  by  the  historian,  prove  to  be  untrue. 
The  rapidity  with  which  Handel  composed 
"  The  Messiah  "  is  a  historical  fact,  and  so 
is  the  story  of  the  creation  of  "  Hark,  Hark, 
the  Lark,"  by  Schubert.  It  was  a  summer 
morning  in  1826,  that  Schubert  was  return- 
ing from  a  long  pleasure  walk  (Spaziergang} 
in  the  suburbs  of  Vienna,  with  a  party  of 
friends  ;  they  had  been  out  to  Potzleindorf, 
and  were  walking  through  Wahring,  when, 
as  they  passed  the  restaurant  "  Zum  Bier- 
sack,"  Schubert  looked  in  and  saw  his  friend 
Tieze,  sitting  at  one  of  the  tables ;  he  at 
once  suggested  that  the  party  enter  and  join 
him  at  breakfast,  which  was  accordingly 
done.  As  they  sat  together  at  the  table, 
Schubert  took  up  a  book  which  Tieze  had 
brought  with  him ;  it  was  Shakespeare's 
poems  in  a  German  translation ;  he  began 
turning  from  page  to  page  in  his  usual  insa- 
tiable search  for  subjects  for  musical  setting  ; 
suddenly  he  paused  and  read  one  of  the 


138    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

poems  over  a  few  times.  "If  I  only  had 
music-paper  here,"  he  cried,  "  I  have  just  the 
melody  to  fit  this  poem."  Without  a  word, 
Doppler,  one  of  his  friends,  drew  the  musi- 
cal staff  on  the  back  of  the  bill  of  fare  and 
handed  it  to  the  composer,  and  on  this  bill 
of  fare,  while  waiting  for  breakfast,  amid  the 
clatter  and  confusion  of  a  Viennese  out-door 
restaurant,  Schubert  brought  forth  the  beau- 
tiful Aubade,  or  Morning  Song,  "  Hark, 
Hark,  the  Lark  !  " 

In  1818  Schubert  received  the  appoint- 
ment of  music-teacher  to  the  children  of 
Prince  Esterhazy ;  it  was  not  a  very  brilliant 
position ;  there  were  two  children,  Marie, 
aged  thirteen,  and  Caroline,  aged  eleven.  The 
task  took  Schubert  to  the  summer  residence 
at  Zelesz,  in  Hungary,  during  some  months 
of  the  year,  and  the  influence  of  these  so- 
journs can  readily  be  perceived  in  the  Hun- 
garian tinge,  the  gypsy  coloring,  existing  in 
much  of  his  instrumental  music  and  espe- 


Franz  Peter  Schubert.  1 39 

cially  in  the  second  movement  of  his  great 
Symphony  in  C  major.  At  the  Esterhazy 
Castle  he  also  met  a  most  cultivated  amateur, 
Baron  Schoenstein,  who  sang  his  lieder  with 
an  intelligence  that  no  opera  singer  of  that 
time  would  have  rivalled.  Schubert  was  also 
able  to  give  musical  soirees  in  the  castle,  and 
even  large  works  were  occasionally  produced 
here  under  his  supervision. 

At  the  castle  he  seems  to  have  associated 
with  the  servants  by  preference,  for  Schubert 
was  never  quite  at  his  ease  with  the  aristoc- 
racy. His  happiest  days  were  spent  among 
the  bourgeoisie  of  upper  Austria.  Yet  it  is 
stated,  although  by  no  means  proven,  that  he, 
at  a  later  epoch,  cherished  a  hidden  passion 
for  the  young  countess,  Caroline  Esterhazy, 
which,  however,  was  never  spoken. 

At  the  end  of  the  summer  he  was  back  in 
Vienna,  and  happy  with  the  circle  of  com- 
panions which  had  gathered  around  him. 
This  circle  deserves  a  few  words  of  descrip- 


140    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

tion,  for  it  may  show  that  Schubert's  life 
was  not  an  unhappy  one,  that  he  had  some 
pleasures  which  mere  money  cannot  buy, 
that  he  lived  in  an  ideal  Bohemia. 

In  the  first  place,  there  was  a  whole  co- 
terie of  musicians  which  met  on  Sundays 
and  played  concerted  music  together.  For 
this  gathering  Schubert  wrote  much  of  his 
instrumental  music,  among  which  the  earlier 
symphonies  were  the  most  important  works. 
At  one  time  the  little  orchestra  had  no  trum- 
pets or  kettledrums,  which  accounts  for  the 
absence  of  these  instruments  in  one  of  the 
master's  symphonies. 

Then  there  came  an  addition  to  the  more 
intimate  circle,  for  the  tenor,  Frans  Jager, 
became  acquainted  with  the  song-writer,  and 
was  bold  enough  (February  18,  1819)  to 
sing  one  of  his  songs  —  "  The  Shepherd's 
Plaint"  -  —  in  public,  when  it  made  an  instan- 
taneous success,  and  caused  his  other  com- 
positions to  be  sought  for. 


Franz  Peter  Schubert.  141 

But  above  all,  there  was  a  circle  of  littera- 
teurs, painters,  poets,  musicians,  all  great 
men  in  embryo,  who  came  together  in  the 
most  jovial  fashion.  This  was  more  than  a 
mere  "  Kneipe "  (a  bacchanalian  gathering), 
for  many  of  the  comrades  lived  together, 
and  shared  their  poverty  in  the  most  light- 
hearted  manner.  There  was  Hiittenbrenner, 
Jenger,  Schwind,  Mayrhofer  (the  one  melan- 
choly member),  Lachner,  Spaun,  and  some 
others.  It  may  be  at  once  admitted  that 
they  were  a  shiftless  and  unpractical  lot. 
What  set  of  young  artists  would  have  been 
otherwise  ?  When  they  had  money  they 
drank  champagne,  when  famine  ruled  they 
took  to  sugar  water  !  It  was  a  Commune  in 
the  fullest  sense  of  the  term,  and  all  their 
slender  property  was  held  in  common. 
When  one  of  the  comrades  had  money,  all 
were  sure  of  sharing  in  temporary  luxury ; 
thus,  Schubert  once  sold  a  number  of  his 
songs  to  a  publisher,  and  that  night  the 


142    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

whole  set  went  to  hear  Paganini,  the  great 
violinist,  at  a  little  over,  two  dollars  a  ticket ; 
the  next  day  the  customary  famine  was  re- 
sumed. If  one  of  the  coterie  had  an  impor- 
tant visit  to  make  he  borrowed  the  best  hat, 
boots,  and  coat  that  the  community  afforded. 
Schubert,  during  one  of  the  impecunious  pe- 
riods, was  unable  to  find  his  wooden  spectacle 
case ;  after  searching  high  and  low  for  it,  he 
came  upon  Moritz  Schwind  placidly  using  it 
as  a  pipe  bowl ;  there  was  tobacco,  but  no 
pipe,  and  no  money  for  a  pipe,  wherefore  a 
hole  bored  into  the  wooden  case  and  the 
insertion  of  a  tube  made  an  acceptable 
substitute  ! 

Schubert  was  the  recognized  leader  in 
these  Bohemian  circles  ;  in  his  honor  they 
called  their  social  gatherings  "  Schubert- 
iades ; "  whenever  some  one  introduced  a  new 
member  to  the  circle  our  composer's  first 
question  was  "  Kann  er  Wass  ?  "  ("  Does  he 
know  anything  ?  "  —  i.  e  .  in  art.)  So  that 


Franz  Peter  Schubert,  143 

they  came  to  call  Schubert  by  the  nickname 
of  "Kannerwass." 

When  they  were  together  at  the  tavern, 
Schubert  was  full  of  playful  pranks ;  he 
would  slyly  break  some  of  the  dishes  when 
the  user  of  them  was  not  watching,  he  would 
cause  the  waiter  to  guess  the  amount  of  his 
score,  and  when  he  was  in  the  best  of  moods 
he  would  wrap  a  comb  in  paper  and  blow 
forth  the  "  Erl-king  "  with  the  most  exagger- 
ated pathos. 

Schubert  was  one  of  the  most  modest  and 
one  of  the  sweetest  of  natures.  His  was 
a  soul,  absolutely  without  jealousy,  entirely 
without  envy.  He  was  utterly  unable  to 
thrust  himself  forward.  He  reverenced 
Beethoven  in  the  highest  degree,  yet,  during 
all  the  many  years  that  the  pair  dwelt  together 
in  Vienna  (and  they  were  often  in  the  same 
restaurant  together),  he  never  plucked  up 
courage  enough  to  endeavor  to  make  the  ac- 
quaintance of  his  idol.  A  single  interview 


144    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

brought  about  by  his  publisher  and  a  short 
visit  to  Beethoven  during  his  last  illness, 
were  empty  of  all  real  result. 

Utterly  incapable  of  managing  business 
affairs,  Schubert  was  the  easy  prey  of  all  the 
music  publishers  that  he  ever  came  in  con- 
tact with.  He  sold  to  Diabelli,  for  example, 
over  seventy  songs  in  one  lot,  among  which 
was  the  "Wanderer,"  for  eight  hundred 
florins;  the  firm  realized  over  twenty-seven 
thousand  florins  from  the  "  Wanderer  "  alone. 

As  a  pianist,  Schubert  was  an  expressive 
player,  but  possessed  no  great  amount  of 
technical  skill.  He  once  attempted  to  play 
his  own  fantaisie,  Opus  1 5,  to  some  friends  ; 
after  breaking  down  twice,  he  sprang  from 
the  piano  in  a  fury,  exclaiming,  "  Das  Zeug 
mag  der  Teufel  spielen ! "  ("The  devil 
himself  couldn't  play  such  stuff ! ") 

There  is  not  much  doubt  that  his  most 
spontaneous  vein  of  composition  lay  in  the 
direction  of  his  songs,  for  here  his  lack  of 


Franz  Peter  Schubert.  145 

contrapuntal  knowledge  did  not  stand  in  his 
way  so  much  as  it  would  in  the  composition 
of  symphonies  or  of  sonatas,  yet  Dvorak  boldly 
states  that  he  believes  Schubert  to  be  great- 
est in  his  instrumental  works.  One  may 
dissent  from  this  opinion  for  the  reason  that 
development  of  figures  is  the  keystone  of 
symphony,  sonata  or  string  quartette,  and 
just  in  such  development  was  Schubert 
deficient ;  his  symphonies,  sonatas,  and 
chamber  compositions  charm  by  their  mel- 
ody chiefly.  They  are  disguised  songs,  poetic 
tunes  placed  in  artistic  contrast,  but  not  per- 
fectly welded  forms  such  as  Beethoven  and 
Brahms  have  given  in  their  large  instrumen- 
tal works. 

The  dark  days  were  coming  upon  Schu- 
bert speedily  enough.  He  composed  so  rap- 
idly that  the  publishers  felt  that  they  were 
overstocked  with  his  works  and  began  to 
refuse  them,  and  he  was  too  little  known  to 
command  any  foreign  markets  for  his  wares. 


146    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

The  price  dropped  painfully.  Some  of  the 
glorious  songs  in  the  "  Winterreise,"  com- 
posed in  1826,  were  actually  sold  at  twenty 
cents  apiece! 

In  1827  came  the  death  of  Beethoven. 
Schubert  had  visited  his  idol  on  his  death- 
bed, and  also  attended  the  funeral.  On  the 
return  from  the  cemetery  a  few  of  the 
mourners  stopped  at  an  inn,  and  drank  a 
glass  of  wine  to  the  memory  of  the  dead 
composer,  when  Schubert  suddenly  pro- 
posed a  toast  to  the  next  great  tone-master 
who  should  die  ;  it  was  a  toast  to  himself, 
for  he  very  soon  followed  Beethoven. 

It  is  a  pity  that  Heine  only  began  to 
grow  famous  as  Schubert  was  nearing  the 
end  of  his  career,  for  the  poet  was  just  the 
inspiration  needed  by  the  composer  of  lieder. 
Even  as  it  is,  some  of  the  best  of  Schubert's 
latest  songs  were  inspired  by  the  poems  of 
Heine.  "The  City,"  "The  Fishermaiden," 
or  "  Am  Meer,"  may  show  what  Heine 


Franz  Peter  Schubert.  147 

could  have  done  for  Schubert  had  their 
careers  been  more  entirely  contempora- 
neous. 

In  1827,  after  the  Beethoven  funeral, 
Schubert  went  to  Gratz  on  a  pleasure  tour 
with  Jenger.  It  was  his  last  great  enjoy- 
ment, for  here  he  came  in  contact  with  some 
of  the  sturdy  farmers  of  that  region,  and 
seems  to  have  entered  heartily  into  the  life 
of  the  middle  classes,  which  he  always  pre- 
ferred to  high  society.  It  is  interesting  to 
notice  that  when  Schubert  was  enjoying  life 
heartily,  he  composed  very  little  (with  Schu- 
mann it  was  exactly  the  opposite),  and  his 
best  works,  composed  in  the  latest  years, 
were  written  amid  gloomy  surroundings. 
He  himself  complained  that  the  public 
seemed  to  love  those  songs  best  which  he 
had  brought  forth  in  greatest  misery.  It 
is  too  often  true  in  music  that  "  the  anguish 
of  the  singer  makes  the  beauty  of  the 
strain." 


148    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

Schubert's  greatest  instrumental  work, 
the  Symphony  in  C,  was  written  in  the  last 
year  of  his  life.  In  this  colossal  work  he 
appears  to  be  more  careful  than  was  his 
wont. 

His  friends  had  often  reproached  him  with 
his  lack  of  care  in  composition,  and  had  cited 
the  great  painstaking  of  Beethoven  to  him  as 
a  model.  "  Go  ahead,"  he  would  reply,  "pitch 
into  me  ;  "  but  it  is  evident  that  he  had  taken 
their  advice  to  heart,  for  in  this  symphony 
he  made  extensive  alterations,  especially  in 
the  scherzo,  after  the  score  had  been  com- 
pleted. He  had  failed  in  the  direction  of 
opera,  his  beautiful  "  Unfinished  Symphony  " 
had  received  no  call  for  its  completion,  and 
now  this  masterpiece  also  fell  flat,  being  re- 
garded as  too  difficult  to  play,  and  not  suffi- 
ciently interesting.  The  whole  work  came 
very  near  being  lost  to  the  world ;  it  was 
many  years  after  that  Schumann  discovered 
the  score,  with  its  accumulated  dust,  an  un- 


Franz  Peter  Schubert.  149 

known,  forgotten  composition,  and  sent  it  up 
to  Leipzig  to  Mendelssohn,  who  caused  it  to 
be  placed  upon  the  Gewandhaus  repertoire. 

Schubert  now  felt  that  he  was  handi- 
capped heavily  by  his  lack  of  contrapuntal 
knowledge.  "  It  is  not  too  late  yet,"  he  said, 
cheerily,  to  some  of  his  friends,  and  almost 
the  last  active  work  of  his  life  was  to  ar- 
range for  lessons  in  counterpoint  with  the 
celebrated  Sechter ;  the  days  for  the  lessons 
were  set,  the  text-book  chosen,  and  Schubert 
departed,  —  to  die. 

It  was  on  the  evening  of  October  31, 
1828,  that  he  was  sitting  at  his  supper  in 
the  tavern  where  he  often  took  his  meals, 
when  suddenly  an  intense  loathing  of  food 
came  .upon  him.  From  that  time  until  his 
death  he  scarcely  partook  of  any  nourish- 
ment. On  the  nth  of  November  he  wrote 
a  pathetic  note  to  his  friend  Schober,  de- 
scribing his  loneliness  and  begging  some 
books  to  read.  He  was  delighted  with 


150    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

some  of  the  Leatherstocking  Tales  by  J. 
Fenimore  Cooper,  and  hoped  that  Schober 
could  obtain  some  more  of  Cooper's  novels 
for  him.  He  was  growing  weaker  and 
weaker,  and,  like  Mozart,  seems  to  have 
been  attacked  by  typhus  fever,  or  some- 
thing akin  to  it.  Schober  did  not  immedi- 
ately reply,  for  he,  in  common  with  the 
whole  circle  of  Schubert's  friends,  had 
never  known  the  composer  to  be  ill,  and 
fancied  it  to  be  some  slight  and  passing 
indisposition.  It  is  a  pathetic  addition  to 
the  misery  of  this  time  that  the  sick  com- 
poser was  reading  the  proofs  of  the  most 
mournful  and  sad  set  of  songs  that  he  ever 
wrote,  —  "  Die  Winterreise,"  —  a  sorrowful 
adjunct  to  his  melancholy  mood. 

He  suffered  no  pain,  but  he  was  extremely 
depressed  and  weak.  Only  Randhartinger, 
of  all  the  Bohemian  circle,  came  to  see  him 
during  these  last  days.  His  loving  brother 
Ferdinand  hurried  to  him.  when  he  learned 


Franz  Peter  Schiibert.  151 

of  the  dangerous  state  he  was  in,  and  stayed 
with  him.  Delirium  now  set  in  intermit- 
tently. A  few  days  before  the  beginning 
of  the  illness,  Schubert  had  heard  Beetho- 
ven's C  sharp  minor  Quartette,  and  it  had 
made  a  deep  impression  upon  him  ;  he  now 
began  to  rave  about  this  composition,  and 
thought  that  Beethoven  was  in  the  room. 
Then  he  imagined  that  his  quarters  were 
changed,  and  was  unhappy  at  the  absence 
of  Beethoven.  Then  came  a  lucid  moment, 
and,  turning  to  the  doctor,  Schubert  said, 
solemnly,  "  Here,  here  is  my  end ! "  and 
mournfully  turned  his  face  to  the  wall.  At 
three  o'clock  on  the  afternoon  of  November 
19,  1828,  Schubert's  short  life  ended. 

He  was  thirty-one  years  old.  He  left 
goods  valued  at  sixty-three  florins,  —  not 
enough  to  bury  him,  —  but  his  loyal  brother 
Ferdinand,  who  had  never  wavered  in  the 
belief  that  his  Franz  was  a  genius,  helped 
from  his  scanty  store,  that  the  burial  might 


152     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

be  worthy.  The  sweet  and  guileless  char- 
acter of  Schubert  also  existed  in  the  nature 
of  the  humble  brother  who  believed  in  him. 

The  epitaph  by  the  poet  Grillparzer  is 
a  very  just  one : 

"  Fate  has  buried  here 
A  rich  possession,  but  yet  greater  promise." 

Some  dense  quibblers  have  found  fault 
with  this,  but  it  is  absolutely  exact.  Schu- 
bert attained  much  "by  the  grace  of  God," 
but  had  he  also  carried  out  his  final  plans 
of  study  he  might  have  become  the  greatest 
of  all  the  composers.  Some  careless  com- 
mentators have  accused  Schubert  of  being 
very  dissipated ;  he  drank  wine  and  beer 
with  some  avidity ;  he  was  neither  a  prig 
nor  a  debauchee.  The  statement  already 
made  in  behalf  of  Mozart  may  also  stand 
in  defence  of  Schubert ;  his  long  list  of 
works  gives  the  lie  to  those  who  would 
make  him  out  to  be  a  mere  dissipated 


Franz  Peter  Schubert.  153 

wretch.  He  was  fond  of  meeting  his  friends 
at  Bogner's  Coffee  House,  and  the  libations 
and  jollity  which  he  indulged  in  there  were 
entirely  in  accordance  with  the  customs  of 
his  time.  One  cannot  refrain  from  likening 
his  career  with  that  of  the  most  natural  of 
poets,  Robbie  Burns ;  both  were  the  min- 
strels of  the  people,  both  sang  in  "  native 
wood-notes  wild,"  and  if  there  were  traces 
of  weakness  or  fault  in  the  two  men  one 
could  say,  with  equal  justice  of  both : 

«  The  light  that  led  astray 
Was  Light  from  Heaven." 


CHAPTER   VII. 

CHOPIN    AND    THE   MODERN  PIANO  COMPOSERS, 
FREDERIC    CHOPIN. 

WE  have  seen  that  all  the  great  tone- 
masters  have  won  their  successes  in  various 
departments  of  musical  composition.  We 
now  come  to  an  exception  to  this  rule ; 
Frederic  Chopin  achieved  all  his  successes 
in  a  single  line  of  composition,  —  pianoforte 
music.  His  attempts  at  orchestration  are 
failures,  his  two  concertos  are  very  badly 
scored,  and  his  songs,  posthumous  works, 
are  beautiful  piano  compositions,  with  poetry 
attached. 

Chopin  might  well  be  called  the  discoverer 
of  the  modern  piano.  It  was  but  natural 
that  such  a  discoverer  should  come ;  the 
'54 


FREDERICK    CHOPIN. 


The  Modern  Piano  Composers.        155 

piano  had  undergone  enormous  changes  since 
its  invention  by  Cristofori  in  1709 ;  Do- 
menico  Scarlatti  had  brought  in  cross-hand 
effects,  modern  homophony  and  a  bravura 
style  applicable  either  to  spinet  or  piano  ; 
Philipp  Em.  Bach  had  established  a  sensible 
system  of  fingering  in  a  book  published  in 
in  1752;  Beethoven  had  turned  the  scales 
against  the  weak  embellishments  which  the 
French  clavecinists  had  fastened  on  spinet 
and  piano  music  alike ;  Clementi,  Czerny,  and 
Moscheles  had  led  technique  forward  to  keep 
pace  with  an  instrument  that  was  constantly 
being  improved,  but  Chopin  suddenly  re- 
vealed to  the  world  the  capabilities  of  one 
of  its  most  versatile  musical  instruments. 

Chopin  was  French  on  the  father's  side, 
Polish  on  the  mother's,  and  in  character  a 
combination  of  the  two  races,  Parisian  to  the 
finger-tips  in  his  elegance,  Polish  to  the  heart 
in  love  of  country  and  intensity  of  emotion. 

He  was  born  at  Zelazowa  Wola,  near  War- 


156     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

saw,  Poland,  probably  March  i,  1809.  As  a 
child  he  had  an  aversion  to  the  piano,  but 
began  studying  music  at  an  early  age,  never- 
theless. Zywny  was  his  only  teacher,  and 
must  have  been  an  excellent  one,  for  the  boy 
was  able  to  appear  in  public  at  nine  years  of 
age,  on  the  very  instrument  which  he  had 
disliked  a  short  time  before.  Joseph  Eisner 
was  his  only  teacher  in  composition.  From 
the  very  first  Poland  was  very  proud  of  its 
young  pianist,  and  Warsaw  called  him  "a 
new  Mozart."  There  was  contact  with  the 
aristocracy  from  the  very  beginning ;  Cata- 
lani  heard  him  at  ten  years,  and  gave  him  a 
watch  ;  the  Czar  listened  to  his  playing  a 
little  later,  and  gave  him  a  diamond  ring. 
Meanwhile,  his  education  was  going  on  at 
the  Warsaw  Lyceum  where  the  father  taught 
French.  The  lad  was  a  wild  boy,  full  of 
mischief  and  juvenile  pranks.  He  remained 
in  Warsaw  until  young  manhood.  In  1825 
he  published  his  Opus  i,  the  Rondo  in  C 


The  Modern  Piano  Composers.        157 

minor.  In  1827  he  left  the  Lyceum  and 
took  up  music  as  his  life-work. 

Opus  2,  a  set  of  variations  on  Mozart's 
duet  in  "  Don  Giovanni,"  —  "  La  Ci  Darem 
la  Mano,"  —carried  his  fame  beyond  Poland, 
for  there  was  a  generous  critic,  Robert  Schu- 
mann, in  Leipzig,  who  discerned  the  promise 
contained  in  the  rather  crude  work,  and  be- 
gan his  review  of  it  with  the  words,  "  Hats 
off,  gentlemen  !  A  genius  ! "  The  work  was 
published  by  Haslinger,  in  Vienna.  In  1 829 
the  composer  went  thither  and  gave  a  con- 
cert, and  subsequently  a  second  one,  neither 
yielding  any  profit. 

At  this  early  epoch  he  wrote  his  concerto. 
Some  of  his  music  was  inspired  by  his  affec- 
tions, a  la  Beethoven.  He  says  that  thoughts 
of  the  beautiful  vocalist  of  Warsaw,  Con- 
stant ia  Gladkowska,  inspired  the  Adagio  of 
the  F  minor  Concerto,  —  and  he  ought  to 
know.  There  were  plenty  more  of  such 
inspirations  in  his  career,  not  always  the 


158     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

highest  in  music.  But  Chopin  was  the  ab- 
solute slave  of  his  emotions,  and  his  music 
sometimes  shows  this  ;  there  is  a  morbidezza, 
a  lack  of  combativeness,  very  different  from 
the  spirit  of  Beethoven.  Field  unjustly  called 
him  "  a  talent  for  the  sick-room  !  "  —  but 
he  might  rather  be  called  the  feminine  (not 
the  effeminate)  in  music. 

Chopin  travelled  slowly  from  Vienna 
towards  Paris,  making  many  aristocratic 
friends  by  the  way.  He  said  that  he  was 
going  "to  the  United  States  via  Paris,"  but 
once  in  the  French  metropolis  he  stayed 
there,  and  one  shudders  to  think  of  what 
the  delicate  composer  would  have  suffered  if 
brought  in  contact  with  the  musical  barbar- 
ism of  our  country  in  1831.  At  this  time 
Warsaw  was  captured  by  the  Russians,  and 
Chopin's  sorrow  over  the  event  may  be  con- 
templated in  his  Etude  in  C  minor,  Opus  10, 
No.  12,  it  being  always  borne  in  mind  that 
his  Etudes  are  not  to  be  regarded  as  study- 


The  Modern  Piano  Composers.        159 

exercises,  but  as  the  sketches  of  an  artist  are 
"  studies  "  of  a  subject. 

In  Paris  he  was  immediately  made  very 
much  of ;  although  Kalkbrenner  was  then 
the  fashionable  teacher  in  the  city,  Chopin 
soon  rivalled  him  in  popularity.  He  gave 
many  lessons,  and  at  the  highest  prices,  but 
as  he  lived  "  en  prince,"  wore  white  kids  at 
lessons,  had  his  valet  attend  him,  came  and 
went  in  a  carriage,  he  was  always  more  or 
less  pressed  for  money.  To  gain  further 
prestige  he  took  a  few  lessons  of  Kalkbren- 
ner;  but  at  his  concert,  February  26,  1832, 
Mendelssohn  said  of  the  pianist,  "  Chopin  is 
worth  twenty  Kalkbrenners !  "  Liszt  was 
among  his  friends  at  this  time,  and  Chopin 
was  publishing  right  along,  winning  a  reputa- 
tion that  very  speedily  became  world-wide. 
His  E  minor  Concerto,  however,  met  with  a 
cold  reception  in  Paris,  and  after  that  he 
detested  the  concert-room,  appearing  publicly 
as  little  as  possible. 


160     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

In  1835  he  went  to  Carlsbad,  Dresden, 
and  Leipzig,  making  many  friends,  among 
them  Schumann  and  Clara  Wieck.  In  1837 
NJiere  came  a  trip  to  London.  It  was  in  this 
year  that  he  met  Madame  Dudevant,  "  George 
Sand,"  and  this  friendship,  or  rather  love, 
was  to  exert  a  great  influence  upon  his  career 
and  his  music.  At  the  home  of  George  Sand 
he  constantly  met  with  Liszt,  Heine,  and  the 
greatest  artists  and  litterateurs  of  France  and 
Germany. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  give  in  detail  the 
growth  of  the  intimacy  between  Chopin  and 
Madame  Dudevant ;  it  finally  ended  in  a 
quarrel  and  rupture  after  Chopin,  now  an 
invalid,  had  sojourned  a  while  with  the 
great  novelist  at  Majorca.  Those  who 
care  to  read  George  Sand's  version  of  the 
affair  can  consult  her  novel  "  Lucrezia  Flori- 
ani,"  in  which  Chopin  is  pictured  under  the 
name  of  "  Prince  Karol."  Weak  and  de- 
jected, yet  in  a  frenzy,  Chopin  departed 


The  Modern  Piano  Composers.        161 

for  Paris ;  on  his  return  to  his  deserted 
rooms  he  tried  to  calm  himself  by  impro- 
vising at  the  piano ;  he  saw  visions,  and 
imagined  that  the  nobility  of  Poland  were 
filing  by  in  long  procession ;  he  viewed  the 
cavalry  marching  out  to  war,  and  then  grew 
afraid  of  his  own  mental  state,  and  fled  from 
the  room.  The  result  of  this  rhapsody  was 
the  great  Polonaise  in  A  flat,  in  which, 
Chopin  has  said,  the  recurring  figure  in  the 
bass  of  the  second  part  represents  the  tramp 
of  the  horses. 

In  1848  came  the  Revolution,  and  all  con- 
tinental Europe  seemed  convulsed  with  the 
throes  of  liberty.  Chopin's  pocket-book  grew 
rapidly  empty,  and,  as  there  was  but  one 
great  European  nation  free  from  the  storm, 
he  went  thither,  and  we  find  him  in  Eng- 
land, very  weak  and  sick,  but  giving  concerts 
in  London,  Manchester,  and  even  in  Glas- 
gow. His  illness  grew  apace,  and  he  re- 
turned to  Paris,  only  to  die  there,  October 


1 62     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

17,  1849.  It  is  a  Polish  custom  among 
noblemen  to  be  buried  in  one's  uniform ; 
perhaps  it  was  this  that  caused  Chopin  to 
direct  that  he  should  be  buried  in  his  con- 
cert costume. 

Among  the  emotional  composers  Chopin 
may  take  first  rank ;  he  cared  little  for 
learned  elaboration  of  form  or  of  figures, 
and  many  of  his  best  works  are  in  the 
simple  song-forms,  or  in  song-form  with 
trio,  the  so-called  "minuet  form."  He  was 
by  no  means  great  in  applying  the  sonata 
form  which  Haydn,  Mozart,  and  Beethoven 
had  established,  but  the  slow  movements  of 
his  sonatas,  where  ingenious  development 
would  be  out  of  place,  are  equal  to  any. 
He  established  the  scherzo  as  an  inde- 
pendent movement ;  his  concertos  are  beauti- 
ful piano  poems,  not  true  concertos.  His 
polonaises  are  the  most  national  of  all 
his  compositions,  and  he  becomes  much 
more  masculine  than  is  his  wont  in  por- 


The  Modern  Piano  Composers.        163 

traying  the  glories  of  his  native  land  in 
these.  So  long  as  emotional  music  is  prized 
by  mankind,  so  long  is  Chopin  sure  of  an 
important  niche  in  the  temple  of  Fame. 

LISZT    AND    RUBINSTEIN. 

Although  we  depart  from  the  chrono- 
logical succession  somewhat,  it  seems  fitting 
at  once  to  chronicle  the  results  of  Chopin's 
work.  After  his  epoch  piano  music  could 
not  return  to  the  primness  of  Clementi  or 
the  phlegm  of  Moscheles ;  a  race  of  techni- 
cists  sprang  up,  piano  playing  became  more 
of  a  specialty,  new  points  of  technique  were 
invented.  The  line  began  with  its  greatest 
exponent,  Liszt,  and  Rubinstein,  Taussig, 
Biilow,  and  others  speedily  followed ;  while 
in  our  own  day  D' Albert,  Paderewski,  and 
a  host  of  others  prove  that  the  interest  in 
this  vein  of  work  has  not  lessened.  Of  this 
list,  however,  only  two  seem  to  belong  to 
the  army  of  composers  of  fame,  and  the 


164    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

title  of  the  greatest  of  all  pianists,  Liszt, 
to  a  place  among  great  composers  may  be 
much  doubted.  Yet  he  did  much  to  further 
that  school  of  piano  treatment  which  Chopin 
had  founded ;  he  showed  by  his  musical 
works  that  the  possibilities  of  the  instru- 
ment had  not  been  exhausted. 

Franz  Liszt  was  born  at  Raiding  in  Hun- 
gary, October  22,  1811,  his  father  being 
an  officer  in  the  service  of  Prince  Nicholas 
Esterhazy.  As  a  child  his  abilities  on  the 
piano  were  marvellous,  and  it  is  said  (but  by 
no  means  proved)  that  Beethoven  heard  the 
lad  play,  and,  although  he  detested  prod- 
igies, gave  him  a  kiss,  saying,  "  He  will 
make  my  music  understood  by  posterity." 
At  thirteen  Liszt  went  to  Paris,  and  fairly 
captured  the  French  metropolis.  From  this 
time  forth,  until  his  death,  Liszt  was  always 
more  or  less  idolized.  He  was  very  hand- 
some, very  talented,  very  generous,  and 
there  was  a  vein  of  religious  mysticism  in 


FRANZ    LISZT. 


The  Mcdern  Piano  Composers.        165 

his  nature,  which  finally  led  him  to  become 
a  dignitary  in  the  Catholic  Church.  He 
claimed  everything  for  the  piano,  and  threw 
down  the  gauntlet  to  the  doubters  by  play- 
ing Beethoven's  symphonies  in  Leipzig,  in  a 
piano  arrangement,  not  a  very  musicianly 
proceeding. 

Adored  by  all  of  the  nobility,  more  than 
one  princess  offered  her  wealth  to  the 
pianist,  who  was,  therefore,  placed  far  above 
all  pecuniary  cares.  The  charities  of  Liszt 
were  boundless ;  the  statue  of  Beethoven  in 
Bonn  owes  its  erection  chiefly  to  him,  who, 
by  his  writings,  concerts,  and  contributions, 
made  it  feasible.  His  concerts  in  aid  of  the 
sufferers  by  inundation,  in  Buda-Pesth,  caused 
suffering  to  be  greatly  ameliorated  in  that 
city ;  his  efforts  in  behalf  of  Robert  Franz 
caused  that  composer  to  enjoy  a  comfort- 
able old  age,  instead  of  being  afflicted  by 
poverty ;  his  aid  to  Wagner  probably  saved 
that  composer  and  his  later  operas  to  the 


1 66     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

world.     A   more   generous    musician    never 
lived. 

Just  as  Chopin  was  distinctly  Polish  in  his 
music,  Liszt  was  essentially  Hungarian,  and 
his  rhapsodies  and  many  other  works 
brought  the  Magyar  folk-music  into  the 
modern  concert  repertoire.  Liszt  was  the 
most  phenomenal  pianist  that  ever  existed, 
and  was  wise  enough  to  retire  from  the  con- 
cert-platform before  his  powers  had  begun  to 
wane.  Yet  his  ambition  was  to  be  considered 
as  a  composer  rather  than  as  a  pianist ;  this 
reputation,  however,  will  probably  be  denied 
him.  His  oratorio  of  "  Holy  Elizabeth,"  and 
his  masses,  show  earnestness  but  not  immor- 
tal genius ;  his  two  symphonies  and  his  sym- 
phonic poems  show  great  brilliancy  of  scoring, 
but  fall  short  of  being  masterpieces ;  but  the 
piano  works  of  Liszt  will  always  have  a  high 
position  as  illustrating  an  epoch  in  the  devel- 
opment of  virtuosity  upon  the  instrument, 
and  far  removed  as  this  technical  work  is 


The  Modern  Piano  Composers.        167 

from  the  poetic  piano  dreams  of  Chopin,  it 
yet  arose  because  Chopin  had  unlocked  the 
possibilities  of  the  instrument. 

Liszt  also  deserves  commendation  for  his 
bold  assertion  of  the  dignity  of  musicianship. 
We  have  seen,  in  the  lives  of  Mozart,  Haydn, 
and  Schubert,  how  low  the  caste  of  the  musi- 
cian was  held  to  be  less  than  a  century  ago. 
Liszt  aided  greatly  to  break  these  fetters. 
The  Princess  Metternich,  after  one  of  his 
concert  tours,  ventured  to  ask  him  whether 
he  had  done  good  business.  "  I  am  in 
music,  your  highness,  not  in  business,"  was 
the  crushing  reply,  which  first  gave  voice  to 
the  dignity  of  our  art.  Liszt  died  July  31, 
1886. 

Anton  Rubinstein  was  born  of  Jewish  par- 
ents in  Wechwotinetz,  Moldavia,  November 
1 6,  1829,  and  died  November  28,  1894.  He 
was  also  one  of  the  pianists  who  built  the 
structure  of  modern  technique,  but  he  was  a 
composer  of  high  rank  as  well.  Had  he 


1 68     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

always  risen  to  the  height  of  the  first  move- 
ment of  his  "  Ocean  Symphony,"  he  would 
have  been  classed  among  the  great  composers, 
and  not  far  from  Beethoven,  but  he  was  an 
unequal  writer,  sometimes  rising  to  great 
heights,  but  sometimes  using  very  evident 
"padding"  in  his  works.  His  father  was 
Polish,  his  mother  German,  therefore  Rubin- 
stein was  not  distinctively  Russian,  yet  Rus- 
sian influences  moulded  him,  and  he,  too, 
shows,  in  some  degree,  the  modern  spirit  of 
nationalism  in  music.  His  father  and  family 
were  baptized  to  escape  the  shameful  persecu- 
tions which  Russia  pours  on  the  ancient  race. 
His  mother  was  his  constant  mentor  (even 
tormentor)  in  music,  and  to  his  latest  days 
he  was  somewhat  afraid  of  her  outspoken 
criticisms. 

His  chief  teacher  was  Villoing,  a  rough 
but  honest  instructor,  who  refused  all  pay 
for  his  services  in  the  matter.  Rubinstein 
was  refused  admission  to  the  Paris  Conserva- 


The  Modern  Piano  Composers.        169 

toire,  as  Liszt  had  been  before  him,  probably 
because  Cherubini,  who  was  at  the  head  of 
the  institution,  hated  all  prodigies.  Liszt 
heard  him  at  the  piano,  and  exclaimed  that 
he  would  be  his  true  successor.  Rubinstein 
was  the  first  who  brought  the  height  of 
modern  virtuosity  to  America,  for  he  made 
a  tour  of  our  country  in  1872.  The  national 
character  of  Rubinstein's  music  is  not  so 
marked  as  is  the  case  with  Liszt,  not  so 
thoroughly  Russian  as  the  operas  of  Glinka, 
or  the  orchestral  works  of  the  great  Russian, 
Tschaikowsky.  He  himself  used  playfully 
to  remark  that  he  could  not  tell  where  he 
stood :  "  The  Russians  call  me  a  German ; 
the  Germans  call  me  a  Russian  ;  the  Jews 
call  me  a  Christian  ;  the  Christians  call  me  a 
Jew.  What  am  I  ?  " 

It  is  not  necessary  to  give  the  full  career 
of  this  modern  composer,  who  died  greatly 
honored  by  the  Czar  and  by  all  Russia.  He 
became  head  of  the  St.  Petersburg  Conserva- 


I/O     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

tory,  and  had  much  influence  upon  the  prog- 
ress of  that  school  of  piano  playing,  which 
was  the  result  of  the  revelations  of  Chopin. 

One  other  man  greatly  assisted  this  modern 
school  of  romantic  and  beautiful  piano  work, 
this  was  Robert  Schumann ;  but  as  he  also 
became  one  of  the  world's  great  composers 
we  must  reserve  an  examination  of  his  deeds 
for  an  especial  chapter. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

MENDELSSOHN    AND    SCHUMANN. 

THESE  two  masters  were  contemporaries 
and  opposites,  very  much  as  Handel  and  Bach 
had  been  in  the  preceding  century,  and  fate 
has  played  see-saw  with  their  relative  positions 
in  the  world's  appreciation  very  much  as  it 
has  done  with  the  valuation  of  the  two  earlier 
and  greater  composers.  At  present,  probably 
because  of  the  attacks  of  Wagner,  Men- 
delssohn is  ranked  too  low ;  during  his  life- 
time he  was  undoubtedly  regarded  with  an 
exaggerated  esteem,  and  held  to  be  greatly 
the  superior  of  Schumann.  In  these  days, 
when  every  young  composer  rushes  through 
the  thorn-bush  of  dissonance,  when  diluted 
Wagners  are  found  on  every  side,  it  is  wise 
171 


172     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

to  study  a  composer  who  loved  form  and 
elegance  of  expression,  who  maintained  sym- 
metry even  in  his  most  dramatic  and  passion- 
ate moments.  Such  a  man  was 

FELIX    MENDELSSOHN  -  BARTHOLDI. 

The  name  is  a  compound,  the  "  Bartholdi " 
coming  from  his  mother's  family.  The  family 
was  a  Jewish  one  on  both  sides,  but  conver- 
sions had  crept  in  and  the  grandson  of  the 
great  Hebrew  philosopher,  Moses  Mendels- 
sohn, was  bred  amid  Christian  influences. 
Mendelssohn  was  born  in  Hamburg  in  1809, 
he  died  in  Leipzig  in  1847,  another  name  in 
the  long  list  of  composers  who  died  in  the 
fatal  fourth  decade  of  their  existence. 

The  right  of  Mendelssohn  to  a  place  among 
the  great  geniuses  of  music  may  be  ques- 
tioned ;  he  was,  unfortunately,  not  tried  in 
the  fire  of  adversity  as  Schubert,  Schumann, 
Beethoven,  Bach,  and  others  of  the  really 
great  composers  had  been.  His  life  was  a 


FELIX    MENDELSSOHN 


Mendelssohn  and  Schumann.         173 

comfortable  one  from  beginning  to  end.  As 
well  demand  of  a  painter  who  has  never  seen 
the  ocean  to  depict  a  storm  at  sea,  as  of  a 
composer  who  has  not  suffered  to  portray 
the  depths  of  emotion.  There  was  generally 
a  fatal  suavity  in  Mendelssohn's  works  which 
prevented  them  from  becoming  entirely  great. 
Mendelssohn's  father,  Abraham,  was  a 
well-to-do  banker ;  he  was  the  son  of  the 
great  Moses  Mendelssohn  and  thus  occupied 
the  position  of  the  prosaic  mule  between  two 
valuable  panniers  ;  he  himself  recognized  this 
position  and  used  to  say  :  "  Formerly  I  was 
regarded  as  the  son  of  my  father,  now  I  am 
looked  on  as  the  father  of  my  son  !  "  But  he 
was  a  man  of  great  practicality  and  sound 
common-sense,  and  there  is  no  prettier  picture 
in  musical  history  than  that  of  the  family  life 
of  the  Mendelssohns  as  revealed  in  Mendels- 
sohn's own  letters.  He  and  his  elder  sister 
Fanny  were  the  closest  of  chums,  and  it  is 
delightful  to  read  of  their  piano  practice 


1/4    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work, 

together  while  the  gentle  mother,  who  guided 
the  work,  sat  by  and  wondered  at  what  she 
called  their  "  Bach  fugue  fingers." 

The  musical  education  was  most  thorough, 
the  strict  Zelter  being  the  teacher  of  counter- 
point and  composition,  and  other  eminent 
teachers  being  their  guides  in  violin  and 
advanced  piano  work,  although  all  these 
branches  were  pursued  with  no  intention  of 
making  music  a  career  but  rather  as  the 
adjuncts  of  a  liberal  education.  French, 
English,  Italian,  Latin,  Greek,  dancing,  math- 
ematics, and  other  branches  of  general  culture 
were  pursued  as  well,  while  tours  to  Paris, 
Switzerland,  Italy,  etc.,  rounded  out  an 
excellent  education. 

When  at  last  the  boy  begged  that  he  might 
devote  himself  altogether  to  music,  the  father 
very  sensibly  did  not  vehemently  oppose  the 
plan,  but  practically  began  to  sift  the  lad's 
abilities  in  this  direction,  and,  once  convinced 
that  his  son  possessed  great  talent  for  com- 


Mendelssohn  and  Schumann.         175 

position,  he  withdrew  all  objection,  and  set 
himself  about  making  the  training  as  thorough 
as  possible. 

There  were  indications  of  absolute  genius 
in  some  of  the  early  works ;  if  Mendelssohn 
could  not  present  stormy  gusts  of  passion  he 
was  at  least  a  master  of  daintiness,  and  not 
one  of  the  great  composers  has  surpassed  him 
in  exquisite  playfulness  such  as  he  constantly 
displays  in  his  scherzo  movements.  This 
playfulness  is  the  chief  characteristic  of  his 
first  great  orchestral  work,  the  overture  to 
"  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  which  was 
composed  when  Mendelssohn  was  but  seven- 
teen years  old.  The  great  octette  for  strings 
also  belongs  to  this  epoch. 

Mendelssohn  was  thoroughly  grounded  in 
Bach,  and  a  choir  was  formed  for  the  practice 
of  the  works  of  this  master  at  his  own  house 
(his  father  had  previously  often  hired  an 
orchestra  for  his  son's  advancement  in  con- 
ducting), and  this  finally  led  to  a  great  public 


176    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

performance  of  Bach's  St.  Matthew  "  Passion 
Music,"  March  1 1,  1829,  under  the  youth's 
own  direction.  This  may  be  counted  as  one 
of  the  great  deeds  in  music,  for  Bach  had 
become  merely  a  shadowy  name  in  Germany 
at  this  time,  even  the  "  Well-tempered  Clavi- 
chord "  being  somewhat  underrated,  while  the 
other  works  of  the  great  master  were  allowed 
to  rest  in  obsolescence. 

After  this  performance  the  great  Bach 
revival  took  place  throughout  all  Germany  ; 
just  as  the  world  owes  much  to  Colley  Gibber 
for  leading  it  to  a  Shakespearian  revival,  it 
has  a  debt  to  Mendelssohn  for  leading  it  to  a 
clearer  appreciation  of  Bach.  After  the  great 
success  of  the  "  Passion  Music  "  Mendelssohn 
for  a  single  time  alluded  to  his  Hebraic 
origin  :  "  It  was  a  Jew  who  gave  this  great 
Christian  work  back  to  the  people,"  said  he. 

A  tour  to  England  followed,  and  here 
Mendelssohn  experienced  something  akin  to 
idolatry ;  his  London  reception  was  wildly 


Mendelssohn  and  Schumann.         177 

enthusiastic.  His  trip  extended  northward 
to  Scotland,  and  this  had  a  direct  influence 
upon  his  music.  Almost  all  of  the  modern 
German  composers  have  endeavored  to  write 
music  in  the  Scottish  manner,  but  only  Men- 
delssohn has  succeeded  in  acquiring  the  true 
Scottish  lilt ;  the  scherzo  of  his  "  Scotch 
Symphony"  may  be  regarded  as  the  most 
Scottish  work  ever  achieved  by  a  German. 
The  Scottish  tour  also  resulted  in  the  "  Heb- 
rides Overture,"  in  which  the  lonely  Isle 
of  Staffa  and  Fingal's  Cave  is  depicted. 
The  entire  chief  theme,  fully  scored,  was 
sent  as  a  letter  from  Scotland  to  his  be- 
loved sister  Fanny.  "This  is  the  way  the 
island  impresses  me,"  wrote  the  young  com- 
poser. The  subsequent  tour  to  Italy  pro- 
duced the  "  Italian  Symphony." 

Soon  after  we  find  the  composer  happily 
married  and  living  in  Leipzig,  full  of  musical 
work.  Among  the  most  important  labors  of 
this  time  may  be  mentioned  the  conducting 


178     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

of  the  Gewandhaus  orchestra  (Mendelssohn 
may  justly  be  called  the  first  really  great 
conductor  of  orchestra),  and  the  founding 
of  the  great  conservatory.  His  works  were 
now  known  throughout  the  entire  world. 
Among  them  we  may  mention,  as  the  most 
important,  the  two  symphonies  alluded  to 
above  (there  were  three  others),  the  glo- 
rious "  Hymn  of  Praise,"  the  most  lofty 
modern  oratorio  of  the  whole  repertoire,  — 
"Saint  Paul,"  —  and,  finally,  his  most  dra- 
matic work,  "  Elijah."  His  overtures  are 
perfect  in  their  way,  and  may  stand  as 
models  of  their  kind.  "  Programme  Music  " 
is  instrumental  music  which  attempts  to  give 
a  definite  picture  ;  it  is  not  the  highest  func- 
tion of  music  (except  in  vocal  forms),  to 
give  such  pictures.  Mendelssohn  followed 
the  lead  of  Beethoven  (who  in  his  weakest 
symphony,  the  "  Pastoral,"  attempted  pro- 
gramme music),  and  made  all  of  his  over- 
tures in  this  school ;  hence  he  was  called 


Mendelssohn  and  Schumann.         1 79 

the  great  musical  Paysagiste.  His  over- 
tures are  delicate  landscapes  or  sea-pictures, 
the  best  examples  of  a  school  which  cannot 
be  called  the  best. 

"  Elijah  "  was  the  chief  cause  of  the  death 
of  Mendelssohn,  as  "  The  Seasons "  killed 
Haydn,  or  the  "  Requiem  "  killed  Mozart.  It 
was  written  for  the  Birmingham  festival  of 
1 846,  but  he  revised  the  work  after  its  per- 
formance to  within  a  very  short  time  of 
his  own  death.  The  labor  and  excitement 
of  composition  were  too  much  for  his  weak 
frame.  The  death  of  his  sister  Fanny  (who 
had  married  the  famous  painter  Hensel) 
nearly  gave  him  his  death-blow.  A  severe 
trouble  in  his  head  existed  during  the  time 
of  the  Birmingham  performances,  and  grew 
much  worse  thereafter.  He  returned  to 
Leipzig  to  die.  His  death  occurred  No- 
vember 4,  1847,  and  all  the  world  mourned 
his  loss. 

Mendelssohn  falls  short  of  the  grandeur 


180     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

and  dramatic  force  of  the  greatest  com- 
posers ;  but  when  the  reaction  from  Wag- 
ner's attacks  upon  the  Jew  in  music  shall 
set  in,  the  world  will  judge  more  fairly  the 
sunny  nature  which  speaks  in  Mendelssohn's 
compositions.  One  school  of  music  does  not 
abolish  another,  Wordsworth  and  Milton  may 
coexist  in  literature,  and  the  symmetrical 
Mendelssohn  may  be  appreciated  in  spite 
of  the  intensity  of  a  Wagner,  or  the  rugged 
power  of  a  Beethoven.  And  it  would  be 
difficult  to  find  a  composer  who  has  ever 
united  the  formal  and  exact  style  of  the 
old  masters  of  music  with  modern  melody 
so  well  as  Felix  Mendelssohn. 

ROBERT    SCHUMANN. 

It  is  too  early  to  do  full  justice  to  the 
peculiar  genius  of  Schumann ;  his  music  is 
too  subtle  and  subjective  to  be  readily 
grasped  by  the  many  even  to-day.  Liszt 
has  summed  him  up  with,  "  Schumann  is 


ROBERT    SCHUMANN. 


Mendelssohn  and  Scliumann.         1 8 1 

the  greatest  music  thinker  since  Beetho- 
ven ; "  Wagner  has  said,  "  Schumann  has 
a  tendency  towards  greatness ; "  the  lauda- 
tion contains  more  truth  than  the  sneer  in 
this  case.  Composers  have  never  been  the 
best  judges  of  other  composers ;  thus,  for 
example,  Mattheson  belittled  Handel,  Handel 
sneered  at  Gluck,  Weber  laughed  at  Beetho- 
ven, Beethoven  said  that  "  Weber  never  got 
beyond  the  art  of  pleasing,"  Cherubini 
handed  back  Berlioz's  compositions  with 
the  slang  remark,  "  Nix  Verstay,"  Mozart 
called  Abt  Vogler  a  charlatan,  and  a  host 
of  other  false  judgments  might  be  cited. 

Schumann  was  a  plant  of  slow  growth, 
the  pioneer  of  romanticism  in  music,  a 
rebel  against  the  formalism  that,  after 
the  death  of  Beethoven,  seemed  settling 
down  upon  German  music,  the  founder  of 
a  new  school.  The  greatest  barrier  in  Schu- 
mann's path  was  his  contemporary  described 
at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter ;  a  fine  melo- 


1 82     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

dist,  a  thorough  contrapuntist,  a  true  formal- 
ist, Mendelssohn  seemed  the  very  Tennyson 
or  Wordsworth  of  music,  while  here  was  its 
Walt  Whitman.  Whether  Mendelssohn  was 
personally  opposed  to  Schumann's  advance 
may  be  doubted,  although  ill-natured  re- 
marks have  been  quoted  which  would  go 
to  show  that  the  jealousy,  which  was  almost 
the  only  flaw  in  Mendelssohn's  character, 
was  active  against  his  competitor.  Yet, 
even  without  any  active  opposition,  the  two 
composers  were  instinctively  antagonistic  in 
their  methods  and  in  their  works.  With 
Mendelssohn  form  came  first ;  with  Schu- 
mann last,  or  not  at  all. 

Schumann  was  born  at  Zwickau,  in  Saxony, 
June  8,  1810.  His  father  was  a  publisher  in 
fairly  good  circumstances,  a  man  of  some 
literary  attainment  and  poetic  gifts,  although 
what  is  called  a  self-made  man.  There  was 
a  vein  of  hypochondria  in  the  family,  and 
Schumann's  sister  died  in  her  twentieth  year 


Mendelssohn  and  Schumann.         183 

of  an  incurable  melancholy.  The  boy  exhib- 
ited a  strong  tendency  towards  literature  in 
his  early  years,  and  wrote  blood-and-thunder 
plays,  which  were  produced  by  his  playmates 
under  his  direction.  His  musical  education 
was  not  neglected,  but  he  received  only  that 
amount  of  piano  instruction  which  is  given 
to  almost  every  child  among  the  middle  and 
upper  classes  in  Germany,  without  any  idea 
that  the  art  of  music  was  to  form  his  life 
career.  Yet  the  father  seems  to  have  sus- 
pected that  there  was  more  than  ordinary 
musical  talent  in  his  son,  for  he  wrote  to  the 
great  Carl  Maria  von  Weber  asking  that  he 
might  take  his  boy  as  a  pupil ;  Weber  con- 
sented, but  for  some  unknown  reason  (prob- 
ably the  opposition  of  the  mother)  the  plan 
came  to  naught. 

The  death  of  the  father  when  Schumann 
was  sixteen  was  an  irreparable  loss.  The 
mother  and  the  guardian,  a  merchant  named 
Rudel,  decided  upon  the  law  as  the  profession 


184    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work, 

best  suited  to  the  youth,  who  acquiesced  in 
this  decision,  and  was  thereupon  entered  as 
a  student  in  the  Leipzig  University. 

"  The  best  laid  schemes  of  mice  and  men 
Gang  aft  agley." 

The  Leipzig  sojourn  was  to  rivet  the 
love  of  music  upon  him  more  than  ever  be- 
fore, for  here  he  met  Frederic  Wieck  and  his 
prodigy-daughter  Clara ;  the  former  was  to 
lead  him  into  the  musical  profession,  the 
latter  was  to  become  his  wife. 

Schumann  was  a  strange  and  romantic 
compound  at  this  time,  and  even  thus  early 
the  terrible  legacy  of  melancholia  began  to 
show  itself. 

He  began  to  have  a  decided  distaste  for 
the  study  of  law.  He  had  come  strongly 
under  the  influence  of  the  mystical  philoso- 
pher, Jean  Paul  Richter,  and  had  an  enthu- 
siasm for  the  poetry  of  Heine  (he  had  met 
the  poet  personally),  which  were  excellent 
inspirations  for  musical  composition,  but 


Mendelssohn  and  Schumann.         185 

very  poor  stimulants  for  legal  studies.  He 
was  working  at  the  piano  under  the  guidance 
of  Wieck. 

At  this  time  Schumann  utterly  refused  to 
have  anything  to  do  with  the  study  of  musi- 
cal theory ;  he  held  that  if  a  man  had  the 
true  feeling  for  music  he  would  not  commit 
any  great  faults  in  composition.  He  lived 
to  entirely  recant  this  opinion,  and  to  repent 
that  he  had  not  taken  greater  pains  to  con- 
quer harmony  and  counterpoint  in  his  youth. 

Schumann  was  now  well  known  in  Leipzig 
circles  as  a  young  man  with  much  skill  in 
piano  playing ;  he  was  tending  towards  a  vir- 
tuosity somewhat  tempered  and  refined  by 
his  poetic  nature.  He  wrote  many  composi- 
tions "  by  ear."  The  next  year  he  spent  in 
Heidelberg,  and  as  his  legal  professor, 
Thibaut  (the  author  of  "  Purity  in  Music  "), 
was  a  man  of  fine  musical  perceptions,  the 
student  drew  musical,  rather  than  legal, 
pabulum  from  him.  But  in  July,  1830,  he 


1 86     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

suddenly  seemed  to  come  to  his  senses,  and 
to  recognize  that  his  existence  was  altogether 
too  aimless ;  the  choice  must  be  made,  in 
fact  he  had  already  unconsciously  made  it. 
Law  was  hopeless  to  him,  music  was  full  of 
promise ;  the  result  was  an  earnest  letter  to 
his  mother,  setting  forth  the  whole  state 
of  the  case.  The  answer  was  a  model  of 
motherly  timidity.  Was  Schumann  sure  of 
himself  ?  Would  he  be  happy  in  so  unremu- 
nerative  a  career  ?  And  finally  Wieck  himself 
should  be  the  judge,  and  Madame  Schu- 
mann wrote  to  him  impressing  upon  him  his 
great  responsibility  in  making  the  decision. 
Wieck  prophesied  Schumann's  success  in  a 
musical  career,  and  the  important  step  was 
definitely  taken,  much  to  the  vexation  of  the 
worthy  guardian,  Rudel,  who  allowed  an 
angry  silence  to  stand  for  consent. 

Schumann  had  not  yet  changed  his  views 
regarding  the  uselessness  of  theoretical  study, 
and  therefore  his  whole  attention  was  now 


Mendelssohn  and  Schumann.         187 

turned  to  piano  study.  As  he  found  his 
fourth  finger  rather  slow  in  development  he 
hit  upon  a  plan  to  hasten  its  progress.  By 
a  series  of  weights,  ropes,  and  pulleys  he 
rigged  up  a  mechanism  that  placed  a  special 
muscular  strain  upon  this  unfortunate  finger. 
He  soon  learned  the  value  of  the  proverb, 
"  Festina  Lente,"  for  his  device  succeeded  in 
permanently  laming  his  finger,  and  the  lame- 
ness soon  extended  to  his  entire  hand.  The 
piano-playing  career  was  at  an  end.  AS  he 
had  definitely  committed  himself  to  the  mu- 
sical profession  he  would  not  now  turn  back 
to  the  law ;  the  once  despised  theory  studies 
were  taken  up  with  ardor  under  the  guidance 
of  Heinrich  Dorn.  There  are  still  in  exist- 
ence harmony  studies  by  the  young  man  of 
twenty-two,  which  contain  false  progressions 
and  cross  relations  that  prove  that  he  was 
obliged  to  commence  at  almost  the  first 
stages  of  harmony ;  but  the  progress  was 
very  rapid  and  the  final  result  sure.  At  this 


1 88     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

time  the  death  of  his  sister  (a  hypochondriac) 
plunged  Schumann  into  a  melancholy  that 
threatened  his  reason.  Possibly  the  very 
best  escape  from  this  grief  was  to  work 
steadily,  and  we  find  the  young  man  at 
twenty-four  founding  a  musical  journal  that 
was  to  have  an  influence  throughout  Europe. 
Germany  had  become  hidebound  in  the 
classical  forms  after  the  death  of  Beethoven  ; 
the  great  tone-masters  seemed  to  have  be- 
come barriers  in  the  path  of  art,  because  of 
the  unreasoning  fetish  worship  of  a  large 
tribe  of  pedants.  Schumann  gathered 
around  him  a  circle  of  young  radicals,  and 
they  began  to  protest  against  this  state  of 
affairs.  In  these  attacks  upon  the  old  fogies 
Schumann  was  aided  rather  than  hindered  by 
his  late  study.  A  Mozart  would  have  looked 
upon  musical  laws  as  immutable  as  those  of 
the  Medes  and  Persians;  not  so  the  young 
man  who  had  studied  them  only  after  attain- 
ing his  majority.  "  Die  Neue  Zeitschrift  fiir 


Mendelssohn  and  Schumann.         1 89 

Musik,"  was  the  literary  outcome  of  the 
meetings  of  the  set  of  young  reformers,  and 
it  began  its  crusade  April  3,  1834. 

Every  young  composer,  being  the  most 
emotional  of  human  beings,  must  needs  fall 
in  love  early.  In  1836  we  find  Schumann 
devoted  to  Ernestine  von  Fricken,  and  spell- 
ing out  the  name  of  the  city  she  came  from 
(Asch,  —  A,  Es,  C,  H,  —  in  our  notation  A, 
E  flat,  C,  B)  in  a  set  of  musical  pictures 
called  the  "  Carnival  Scenes,"  —  a  very  pretty 
love-letter.  But  this  was  like  the  passion 
of  Romeo  for  Rosaline  before  the  Juliet  con- 
flagration had  set  in  ;  the  life-passion  followed 
soon  after,  and  with  incomparably  greater 
intensity. 

If  there  is  any  practice  in  musical  litera- 
ture to  be  reprehended,  it  is  the  custom  of 
the  dealers  in  bathos  to  add  false  coloring 
to  the  romantic  episodes  in  the  lives  of  the 
composers ;  in  the  case  of  Schumann  it  is 
like  gilding  refined  gold  or  painting  the  lily, 


190    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

—  "a  wasteful  and  ridiculous  excess."  The 
tale  that  Schumann  wrote  his  "Warum"  to 
his  beloved  during  their  enforced  separation, 
and  that  it  won  him  his  bride,  is  utterly  and 
atrociously  false.  The  true  love-tale,  as 
earnest  and  noble  as  any  from  Heloise  and 
Abelard  to  Paul  and  Virginia,  is  as  follows  : 
Schumann  had  come  back  to  the  Wiecks,  and 
found  the  talented  child  Clara,  no  longer  a 
prodigy,  but  an  earnest  artist  and  a  lovely 
woman.  He  found  her  a  sympathizing  com- 
panion, a  zealous  supporter.  She  understood 
his  subtle  music,  she  comprehended  his  aims, 
and  as  they  worked  together  a  worthy  affec- 
tion grew  up  in  both  of  them.  The  father  was 
angry  when  he  heard  of  this ;  he  had  proph- 
esied Schumann's  success  in  music  when 
his  anxious  mother  asked  him  to  decide  upon 
her  son's  career,  in  1830,  but  in  1837  he 
found  this  altogether  too  dubious  to  allow 
him  to  give  the  hand  of  his  daughter  to  the 
young  aspirant. 


Mendelssohn  and  Schumann.         191 

Right  sturdily  did  Schumann  set  himself 
about  winning  his  bride ;  she  had  promised 
to  wait  for  him  while  he  conquered  fortune, 
and  therefore  he  set  forth  to  the  long  battle 
with  good  courage.  He  went  to  Vienna, 
because  he  thought  that  his  chances  would 
be  better  there,  but  he  found  that  the  Vien- 
nese cared  little  for  the  dreamy,  romantic 
composer. 

While  in  Vienna,  however,  he  found  a 
dusty  score,  which  proved  to  be  Schubert's 
greatest  symphony,  and  he  saved  this  to  the 
world ;  he  also  found  a  pen  upon  the  grave 
of  Beethoven,  and,  his  mystical  feelings  being 
aroused,  with  this  same  pen  he  afterward  wrote 
his  glorious  symphony  in  B  flat,  a  worthy 
successor  to  the  great  Beethoven  symphonies. 

He  gave  a  series  of  lectures  at  a  college, 
and  received  the  title  of  "  Doctor "  as  an 
added  honor;  finally,  in  1839,  having  won 
something  of  fame  and  a  respectable  income, 
he  entered  suit  for  the  hand  of  Clara  Wieck, 


1 92     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

—  not  a  love  but  a  law  suit.  In  Saxony  it 
was  permissible  if  two  lovers  were  separated 
by  the  opposition  of  parents,  if  they  were  of 
age  and  there  were  no  good  cause  to  forbid 
marriage,  to  enter  suit  to  compel  the  parents 
to  show  cause  why  the  banns  should  be  for- 
bidden ;  if  no  impediment  were  shown,  the 
court  could  "recommend"  to  the  parents  to 
give  their  consent,  and  the  marriage  was 
permitted.  This  was  what  took  place  in 
Schumann's  case  in  1839,  an(^  September 
12,  1840,  the  faithful  pair  were  married. 

Music  at  once  resulted  from  this  union. 
Schumann  always  wrote  most  and  best  when 
he  was  happiest  (in  darker  days  melancholy 
would  seem  to  crush  out  inspiration),  and  the 
wedding  year  of  1840  found  him  bursting 
into  song,  and  telling  of  his  happiness  in 
"Poet's  Love"  ("  Dichterliebe "),  of  his 
Clara's  experience  in  "Woman's  Life  and 
Love "  (a  cycle  that  was  prophetic,  for  the 
hero  dies,  and  the  widow  lives  on  in  mem- 


Mendelssohn  and  Schumann.          193 

ories),  and  besides  these  two  greatest  of  Ger- 
man Song  Cycles  the  contented  husband 
composed  his  beautiful  B  flat  symphony,  also 
autobiographical  music,  which  he  originally 
mtended  to  call  "  Spring  Symphony,"  a  paean 
of  triumph. 

From  the  above  the  reader  will  readily 
surmise  that  Schumann  was  fond  of  giving  his 
own  experiences  in  his  compositions  ;  proba- 
bly no  other  composer  did  this  so  directly  as 
he.  Studying  his  works  from  this  standpoint, 
one  is  struck  with  the  oppositional  character 
of  some  of  them  ;  one  does  not,  to  be  sure,  find 
a  Doctor  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,  but  one  finds 
two  characters  quite  as  diverse.  The  key  to 
this  contrasted  style  is  also  to  be  sought  in 
Schumann's  own  character ;  he  said  of  him- 
self that  at  times  he  was  an  aggressive  radi- 
cal, and  at  times  a  sensitive,  introspective 
poet ;  he  gave  these  characters  names,  and 
called  the  fiery  nature  "  Florestan,"  the 
dreamer  "  Eusebius ;  "  he  often  signed  his 


194    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

criticisms  by  these  names,  according  to  their 
moods,  and  some  of  his  music  carries  one  or 
the  other  signature,  his  first  piano  sonata  both. 
In  his  literary  work  he  evolved  a  third  char- 
acter which  should  mediate  between  these 
two  oppositional  ones,  and  he  called  this 
party  "  Master  Raro."  All  these  fancies 
show  a  dwelling  in  dreamland  that  was 
dangerous  for  a  mind  with  the  tendency 
towards  insanity  that  existed  here. 

In  1843  we  find  Schumann  a  coadjutor  of 
Mendelssohn  in  the  new  conservatory  in 
Leipzig  ;  here  he  was  teacher  of  composition, 
and  otherwise  active.  During  a  subsequent 
concert  tour  in  Russia  the  symptoms  of 
mental  malady  again  showed  themselves.  In 
1850  Schumann  was  appointed  successor  to 
Hiller  at  Diisseldorf,  and  the  beautiful  Rhine 
life  seems  to  have  benefited  him  somewhat. 
The  "  Cologne  Symphony "  was  a  result  oi 
his  surroundings  here. 

But  the  improvement  was  only  temporary, 


Mendelssohn  and  Schumann.         195 

and  in  1853  the  symptoms  of  mental  aliena- 
tion grew  more  pronounced.  He  began  to 
attend  spiritualistic  stances,  and  imagined 
that  Beethoven  was  trying  to  communicate 
with  him  by  means  of  four  knocks  upon  the 
table,  —  the  figure  of  the  first  movement  of 
the  Fifth  Symphony ;  he  fancied  himself 
haunted  by  Schubert,  who  begged  him  to 
finish  the  "  Unfinished  Symphony ; "  he 
imagined  that  the  note  "  A "  was  always 
sounding  in  his  ears,  and  gradually  whole  com- 
positions seemed  to  grow  above  this  continual 
organ-point ;  he  thought  that  spirits  brought 
him  themes.  February  27,  1854,  he  wrote 
down  one  of  these  themes  (Brahms  has  set  it 
as  piano  variations  ending  with  a  funeral 
march),  and  then  came  one  of  those  dreadful 
lucid  intervals  in  which  he  was  conscious  that 
he  was  going  crazy ;  he  rushed  from  the 
house  to  the  river,  and  threw  himself  in  with 
a  hope  of  ending  all  his  troubles  ;  some  pass- 
ing sailors  rescued  him,  but  the  shock  was 


196    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

too  severe,  and  his  mind  gave  way  altogether  ; 
two  years  more  he  lingered  on,  an  incurable 
patient  at  an  asylum  in  Endenich.  His  wife 
was  forbidden  to  visit  him,  for  it  seemed  to 
excite  his  emotions  too  greatly  to  see  her. 
He  died  July  29,  1856. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

A  BATCH  OF  OPERATIC  COMPOSERS. 

AFTER  the  foundation  of  opera  (1594- 
1 600)  there  were  many  composers  in  countries 
widely  separated  who  took  up  the  new  school 
of  work  ;  we  have  traced  the  Italian  efforts 
to  the  time  of  their  decadence  and  defeat  by 
the  superior  work  and  theories  of  Gluck. 
In  England  the  greatest  musical  genius  that 
the  country  had  ever  produced,  Henry  Purcell 
(1658-1695),  wrote  more  than  fifty  operas, 
copying  the  Italian  school,  and  also  being  the 
first  to  introduce  Italian  terms  of  expression 
into  English  usage.  A  great  organist,  a 
thorough  contrapuntist,  far  in  advance  of  all 
other  English  composers  in  his  grace  and 
fluency  of  expression,  Purcell  deserves  an 
197 


198    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

especial  place  in  history  as  having  been  the 
composer  of  the  melody  (originally  a  quick- 
step) which  became  world-famous  as  "  Lilli- 
burlero,"  the  war  song  of  the  Revolution  of 
1688.  Lord  Wharton,  the  author  of  the 
doggerel  poetry,  claimed  that  he  had  rhymed 
James  the  Second  out  of  his  dominions,  but 
it  was  Purcell  who,  with  his  catchy  melody, 
won  the  day  for  England,  a  triumph  only 
second  to  that  of  Rouget  de  1'Isle,  during  the 
French  Revolution,  with  his  "  Marseillaise." 
In  France  Jean  Baptiste  Lully  (1633-1687) 
founded  an  opera  which  was  intertwined  with 
comedy,  tragedy,  or  ballet,  according  to  the 
moods  and  commands  of  the  Grand  Mo- 
narque,  Louis  XIV.  In  evolving  this  species 
of  entertainment  Lully  had  the  enormous 
advantage  of  collaborating  with  the  "  French 
Shakespeare  "  —  Moliere.  Lully  rose  from 
the  menial  position  of  scullion  in  the  kitchen 
of  Mile,  de  Montpensier  to  the  high  rank  of 
favorite  composer  of  the  court  of  Louis  XIV. 


A  Batch  of  Operatic  Composers.       199 

He  died  honored  and  wealthy.  His  death 
was  brought  about  by  a  peculiar  accident : 
he  was  directing  a  rehearsal  of  his  Te  Deum, 
composed  in  honor  of  the  king's  recovery 
from  an  illness ;  he  was  an  irascible  man,  a 
leader  who  had  once  broken  a  violinist's  riddle 
over  his  head  because  of  an  imperfect  per- 
formance ;  things  were  not  going  well  at  this 
particular  rehearsal,  and  Lully  was  pounding 
his  long  staff  upon  the  floor  (the  mode  of 
conducting  music  at  that  time)  with  extreme 
violence ;  suddenly  he  had  the  misfortune  to 
strike  his  own  gouty  foot ;  gangrene  set  in, 
Lully  refused  to  allow  amputation,  and  the 
founder  of  modern  French  opera  practically 
died  of  conducting. 

Jean  Philippe  Rameau  (1683-1764)  devel- 
oped the  legacy  which  Lully  had  left  to  the 
French  nation,  and  his  boldness  of  modula- 
tion and  dramatic  instinct  made  him  in  some 
degree  the  precursor  of  Weber.  As  Rameau 
discovered  the  laws  of  chords  and  their  for- 


2OO    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

mation,  he  may  be  considered  the  father  of 
modern  harmony.  He  left  a  treatise  upon 
this  subject,  which,  although  containing  some 
errors,  yet  led  Catel,  Fetis,  Godfrey  Weber, 
Richter,  and  others  to  their  more  practical 
methods  of  harmony.  His  harpsichord  works 
are  also  very  important,  and  Rameau  was  an 
important  reformer  in  the  musical  art,  not 
only  for  the  kingdom  of  France  but  for  the 
entire  world.  Following  him  there  comes  a 
long  and  honorable  line  of  composers  in 
France,  among  whom  can  be  named  Gre"try 
(1741-1813),  whose"  Richard  CoeurdeLion" 
remains  a  gem  of  the  modern  repertoire ; 
Mehul  (1763-1817),  favorite  composer  of  the 
great  Napoleon  ;  Boieldieu  (1775-1834),  best 
of  all  the  older  French  operatic  composers, 
a  Parisian  Mozart ;  and  in  modern  times 
Auber  (1782-1871),  and  others  who  demand 
more  extended  notice. 

Very  many  of   the   modern  French   com- 
posers came  under  the  influence  of  a  stern 


A  Batch  of  Operatic  Composers.      201 

and  exacting  teacher,  who,  in  spite  of  some 
great  errors  of  judgment,  exerted  a  powerful 
influence  upon  advancing  French  art.  This 
was  an  Italian  who  brought  to  France  all 
that  was  best  of  the  old  contrapuntal 
schools. 

CHERUBINI. 

Luigi  Carlo  Zenobi  Salvatore  Maria 
Cherubini,  whose  name  was  somewhat  short- 
ened when  in  practical  use,  was  born  in 
Florence,  in  1760,  and  was  a  pupil  of  Sarti. 
He  was  in  England  a  short  time,  and  had 
heard  Gluck's  French  operas  and  Haydn's 
orchestral  music,  being  influenced  by  both. 
He  was  in  France  in  1789,  and  saw  the  in- 
ception and  progress  of  the  Revolution,  join- 
ing the  National  Guard,  and  writing  Jacobin 
music,  to  avoid  the  chance  of  losing  his  head 
in  the  dangerous  days  of  "  The  Terror."  He 
was  a  harsh  character  and  a  most  severe 
critic.  He  became  head  of  the  Paris  Con- 


2O2    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

servatoire,  and  not  only  rejected  Liszt  and 
Rubinstein,  when  these  great  artists  were  at 
the  beginning  of  their  careers,  but  also 
sneered  at  Berlioz,  when  that  genius,  in  the 
Conservatoire,  was  giving  proof  of  his  bold 
flights  in  orchestral  work. 

A  quarrel  with  Napoleon  forced  him  out  of 
composition  for  awhile,  but  during  a  subse- 
quent sojourn  in  Belgium  he  again  took  up  his 
work.  After  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons 
the  Conservatoire  was  reopened,  and  Cherubini 
again  became  its  head.  He  now  published 
his  great  work  on  counterpoint  and  fugue. 
He  wrote  some  operas  which  Beethoven 
greatly  admired,  but  his  greatest  works  were 
in  the  sacred  school,  and  Beethoven  held 
these  to  be  models  of  pure  art.  His  re- 
quiem masses  remain  a  monument  of  contra- 
puntal skill,  and  his  pure,  chaste  style  can  be 
studied  in  the  overture  to  "The  Watercar- 
rier,"  which  is  often  heard  in  the  modern 
concert-room. 


A  Batch  of  Operatic  Composers.       203 

As  a  man  Cherubini  was  far  more  feared 
than  loved,  yet  it  must  be  confessed  that  his 
severe  influence  was  very  beneficial  to  France, 
and  prevented  a  lapse  into  triviality,  of  which, 
in  the  early  part  of  the  century,  there  was 
some  danger.  He  died  in  1842.  He  had 
the  courage  to  say  to  Boieldieu,  when  his 
"  Caliph  of  Bagdad  "  had  captured  all  Paris, 
"Are  you  not  ashamed  to  enjoy  such  an 
undeserved  success  ? "  and  the  younger  com- 
poser took  the  remark  sufficiently  to  heart  to 
become  one  of  Cherubini's  pupils,  and  even- 
tually to  produce  greater  works,  as  "La 
Dame  Blanche,"  for  example,  as  a  conse- 
quence. 

Auber  was  also  a  pupil  of  Cherubini,  and 
was  his  successor  hi  the  directorship  of  the 
Conservatoire.  In  later  days  another  com- 
poser of  operas  obtained  the  directorship, 
Ambroise  Thomas  (1811-1895),  and  carried 
still  further  the  successes  of  the  French 
operatic  school.  The  most  promising  of  all 


204    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work, 

of  the  moderns  in  France,  however,  Georges 
Bizet  (1838-1875),  died  too  young  to  give 
forth  his  full  message  to  the  art  world.  His 
music  in  "  L'Arlesienne,"  and  his  opera  of 
"  Carmen,"  show  him  to  have  been  the  most 
promising  composer  of  France,  as  Purcell 
was  of  England. 

MEYERBEER. 

Although  Wagner  has  called  Meyerbeer 
"a  miserable  music-maker,"  "a  Jew  banker 
to  whom  it  occurred  to  make  operas,"  one 
cannot  dismiss  Giacomo  Meyerbeer  with  so 
harsh  a  verdict.  Although  a  German  his 
influence  was  so  entirely  exerted  in  France 
that  a  notice  of  his  life  falls  properly  in  line 
with  French  operatic  development. 

His  name  was  Jacob  Liebmann  Beer.  His 
father  was  one  of  the  richest  of  German  bank- 
ers, and  the  family  was  Jewish.  All  the 
family  were  talented  in  one  direction  or 
another.  During  his  childhood  one  of  the 


A  BatcJ i  of  Operatic  Composers.       205 

rich  uncles  of  the  boy  died,  leaving  him  all 
his  property  on  condition  that  the  avuncular 
name  of  Meyer  be  added  to  the  boy's  name 
of  Beer,  whence  came  "  Meyer-Beer." 
Meyerbeer  was  born  in  1791  and  died  in 
1863.  His  chief  teacher  was  Abt  Vogler, 
who  also  had  the  great  Weber  for  a  pupil. 
That  Meyerbeer  was  dramatic  cannot  be 
doubted ;  that  he  was  a  master  of  orchestral 
resources  is  also  indisputable;  but  he  was 
not  born  to  be  a  leader  in  art.  He  had 
approbativeness  in  the  highest  degree,  and 
sought  above  all  things  immediate  approval 
and  applause ;  as  a  consequence  he  wrote 
down  to  his  public,  and  never  attempted  to 
lead  them.  Such  a  man  could  not  fail  to  be 
antipathetic  to  Wagner,  who  made  the  art- 
ideal  his  only  religion. 

Meyerbeer  was  fortunate  in  being  able  to 
secure  the  best  librettists  for  his  operas, 
and  his  two  chief  works,  "  Robert  le  Diable  " 
and  "  Les  Huguenots,"  show  how  keenly 


206    Great  Composers  and  Tluir  Work. 

alive  he  was  to  the  dramatic  opportunities 
they  afforded  to  his  muse.  He  was  not  of 
the  stuff  of  which  martyrs  are  made,  yet  he 
was  able  to  rule  French  opera  for  many 
decades,  and,  spite  of  the  great  advance 
made  in  the  operatic  field,  chiefly  because  of 
Wagner,  his  works  are  by  no  means  obliter- 
ated, but  are  very  frequently  heard  on  the 
stage  to-day.  That  Meyerbeer  did  not  live 
up  to  his  own  highest  musical  ideals  must  be 
conceded  even  by  his  warmest  followers ; 
even  the  gentle  Schumann  grew  indignant 
about  some  of  his  vulgarities  in  opera ;  yet 
he  was  an  important  influence  in  his  time, 
and  many  who  have  abused  him  have  not 
scrupled  to  appropriate  some  of  his  orches- 
tral effects. 

Herold  and  HaleVy  also  may  be  mentioned 
among  those  who  had  an  effect  upon  the 
French  school  of  opera.  Among  the  latest 
composers  who  worked  in  this  field  one  may 
speak  of  Gounod  and  Saint  Saens. 


CHARLES    GOUNOD. 


A  Batch  of  Operatic  Composers,       207 

GOUNOD. 

Charles  Gounod,  born  1818,  died  1895, 
came  of  an  artistic  family,  although  the  tal- 
ents of  his  father  and  grandfather  were  ex- 
erted not  in  the  domain  of  music,  but  of 
sketching,  engraving,  and  painting.  Gounod 
was  a  pupil  of  the  Paris  Conservatoire,  and 
won  the  Prix  de  Rome  (the  greatest  musical 
prize  the  world  offers)  at  the  French  Insti- 
tute in  1840.  He  had  a  strong  tendency 
towards  religion  in  his  early  years,  and  came 
so  near  to  taking  holy  orders  that  "Abbe 
Gounod "  was  printed  as  the  name  of  the 
composer  on  some  of  his  music.  This  reli- 
gious fervor  returned  to  him  in  old  age.  His 
first  important  compositions,  therefore,  were 
masses,  and  these  are  far  more  earnest  and 
genuine  than  the  religious  music  which 
Gounod  brought  forth  in  his  later  accession 
of  religious  zeal. 

His  first  operas  were  absolute  failures,  and 


2o8    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

the  non-success  sent  him  back  for  a  time 
to  sacred  composition.  "  Faust,"  however, 
changed  all  this  ;  this  opera  was  produced  in 
1859,  and,  strange  to  say,  was  not  an  imme- 
diate success.  The  verdict  of  critics  and  pub- 
lic soon  became  favorable,  however,  and  after 
the  Theatre  Lyrique  had  produced  the  work 
four  hundred  times  the  Grand  Opera  House 
asked  for  it.  It  has  been  produced  in  Paris 
alone  more  than  one  thousand  times.  "  Ro- 
meo and  Juliet "  was  scarcely  less  of  a  popu- 
lar success,  and  Paris  has  heard  this  opera 
over  five  hundred  times.  Gounod's  other 
operas  are  eclipsed  by  these  two  successes,  but 
all  of  them  have  some  worth.  His  operatic 
composition  seems  to  be  a  pleasant  half-way 
house  between  the  classical  and  the  popular 
style,  and  his  orchestral  devices  and  his 
working  up  of  climaxes  are  often  admirable. 

After  a  life  that  was  very  far  from  being 
religious,  we  find  our  composer  in  sacred 
work  again,  and  his  "Redemption"  (1882) 


A  Batch  of  Operatic  Composers.       209 

and  "Mors  et  Vita"  (very  much  overrated 
works)  prove  the  saying,  "  On  revient  tou- 
jours  a  ses  premieres  amours." 

CAMILLE    SAINT    SAENS. 

Saint  Saens  was  born  in  Paris,  October  9, 
1835.  He  began  the  study  of  music  when 
he  was  scarcely  three  years  old,  exhibiting 
as  early  precocity  as  Mozart.  He  became  a 
student  at  the  Conservatoire,  that  institution 
which  has  done  so  much  to  develop  the  com- 
posers of  its  nation.  Saint  Saens  has  written 
several  operas  which  have  won  success,  al- 
though they  are  by  no  means  as  popular  or 
as  easily  comprehended  as  those  of  Gounod 
or  of  Thomas  ;  but  in  his  orchestral  works  the 
composer  easily  holds  the  first  rank  among 
all  the  modern  French  composers ;  he  is  a 
master  of  scoring,  and  his  Symphonic  Poems 
(they  are  not  akin  to  symphonies,  for  in 
French  the  word  "  symphonique "  simply 
means  "  orchestral ")  are  excellent  examples 


2  io    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

of  what  can  be  done  with  the  modern  orches- 
tra. Saint  Sae'ns  is  one  of  the  best  organists 
now  living,  and  his  organ  compositions  are 
only  second  to  those  of  Widor  in  the  modern 
French  school.  The  composer  is  one  of  the 
wealthiest  of  musicians,  but  possibly  this 
same  affluence,  as  in  the  case  of  Mendelssohn 
or  Meyerbeer,  prevents  him  from  attaining 
the  highest  expression  of  emotion,  which  is 
born  in  some  degree  of  the  combats  of  life. 

In  Italy  the  development  of  opera,  after 
the  reforms  of  Gluck  had  checked  the  false 
direction  of  art,  was  somewhat  in  the  nature 
of  a  retrogression.  A  genius  came  upon  the 
scene  just  after  Gluck  had  established  his  the- 
ories, whose  misapplied  abilities  decidedly  set 
back  musical  progress  in  the  operatic  field. 

ROSSINI. 

Gioacchino  Rossini  was  born  at  Pesaro, 
February  29,  1792.  By  his  admirers  he  is 
called  "The  Swan  of  Pesaro,"  but  the  Wag- 


A  Batch  of  Operatic  Composers.       211 

nerians  by  no  means  acquiesce  in  this  title. 
His  youth,  passed  amid  the  troubles  of  the 
Franco-Italian  campaigns,  was  by  no  means  a 
pleasant  one,  until,  by  his  sweet  voice,  he 
was  able  to  earn  some  money  and  gain  musi- 
cal tuition  in  Bologna.  He  had  a  fatal 
facility  of  composition  which  led  him  to  pour 
forth  opera  after  opera.  In  these  works  he 
was  absolutely  innocent  of  any  knowledge  of 
the  theories  of  Gluck,  which  demanded  dra- 
matic significance  of  the  music  as  well  as 
beauty  of  melody  or  harmony.  To  illustrate 
the  weakness  of  the  brilliant  school  of  Ros- 
sini, one  need  only  to  cite  the  bright  and 
genial  melody  of  "  Cujus  Animam "  in  his 
"  Stabat  Mater "  where  the  sighs  of  the 
weeping  mother  are  supposed  to  be  pictured, 
or  the  showy  fioriture  of  "  Semiramide " 
which  scintillate  even  in  the  most  tragic 
moments  of  that  opera.  Per  contra  it  must 
be  admitted  that  sometimes  Rossini  united 
the  sentiment  of  the  poem  with  the  music  in 


212    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

marvellous  fashion  ;  the  "  Quando  Corpus  " 
of  the  "Stabat  Mater,"  the  "  Inflammatus  " 
of  the  same  work,  the  entire  opera  of  "  The 
Barber  of  Seville,"  almost  the  entire  opera  of 
"  William  Tell "  show  conclusively  what  a 
great  leader  in  the  development  of  dramatic 
expression  in  opera  Rossini  might  have  been, 
had  he  cared  to  take  the  true  path. 

Naples,  Rome,  Paris,  finally  the  whole 
civilized  world,  fell  under  the  spell  of  the 
charming  melodies  which  the  careless  genius 
was  pouring  forth,  and  as  the  singers  found 
the  works  very  vocal  and  admirably  calculated 
to  display  their  talents,  and  as  the  public 
had  no  art-theories  in  particular,  it  is  not 
astonishing  that  Rossini  threw  Gluck  en- 
tirely into  the  shade  and  stood  as  a  barrier 
to  the  success  of  Beethoven's  one  opera  and 
of  such  other  composers  as  were  prating  of 
"  dramatic  unity  "  or  "  fitness  of  things." 

After    successes    in    London    and    Paris, 
Rossini  seems  to   have   determined    upon  a 


A  Batch  of  Operatic  Composers.       213 

magnum  opus,  an  opera  that  should  display 
his  capabilities  to  the  utmost.  "William 
Tell  "  was  the  result,  and  it  was  performed 
in  Paris,  August  3,  1829.  In  this  opera 
Rossini  seems  to  have  definitely  followed  the 
path  indicated  by  Gluck ;  there  is  no  longer 
vocal  display  merely  for  the  sake  of  display, 
there  are  no  senseless  roulades,  the  com- 
poser no  longer  fishes  for  the  public  with  a 
melody-baited  hook,  but  all  is  dignified,  fit- 
ting, deeply  dramatic.  With  this  great  art 
success  Rossini  retired  from  the  operatic 
stage.  His  works  had  made  him  wealthy, 
and  he  probably  felt  that  he  could  not  go 
beyond  the  point  he  had  attained.  He  died 
long  after  this,  on  the  thirteenth  of  Novem-  * 
ber,  1 868 ;  but,  although  he  wrote  much 
music  after  1 829,  he  could  not  be  persuaded 
to  attempt  another  opera  after  "William 
Tell,"  his  masterwork. 

Rossini  led  to  a  false  school  of   operatic 
writing.    Other  composers  seeing  his  success, 


214    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

and  believing  that  melody  and  vocal  display 
were  all  that  were  necessary  to  make  a  good 
opera,  wrote  much  that  posterity  needed  to 
sift  out.  Bellini  (1802-1835)  followed  with 
"  Norma  "  and  "  La  Somnambula,"  and  died 
too  young  to  regain  the  correct  path,  as 
Rossini  had  finally  done.  Donizetti  (1798- 
1848)  won  the  plaudits  of  the  world  with 
such  works  as  "  Lucia,"  "  Linda  di  Cha- 
mounix,"  and  other  melodic  and  harmonious 
untruths,  and  carried  on  the  Rossini  half- 
truths  to  their  legitimate  conclusion.  Poetry 
and  music  seemed  almost  divorced,  or,  at 
least,  the  latter  became  tyrant  over  the  for- 
mer. But  a  thunder-storm  was  coming  to 
clear  the  atmosphere ;  already  the  premoni- 
tions of  the  tempest  were  heard  in  the  operas 
which  Germany  was  beginning  to  produce. 

WEBER. 

Kreutzer,  Marschner,  and    Lortzing  were 
significant  straws  as  to  the  direction  in  which 


CARL    MARIA    VON    WEBER 


A  Batch  of  Operatic  Composers.       215 

German  opera  was  progressing,  but  the  true 
light  of  dramatic  power  and  of  orchestral  effi- 
ciency arose  in  the  works  of  Carl  Maria  von 
Weber.  His  was  a  school  following  the 
artistic  laws  which  Gluck  had  laid  down,  and 
also  calling  to  its  aid  the  pure  influence  of 
the  music  of  the  people,  the  wild-briar  rose 
of  art,  the  folk-song. 

Weber's  father  was  a  good  musician,  a 
spendthrift,  a  poor  scion  of  an  aristocratic 
family,  and  an  unreliable  character  altogether. 
The  boy  was  born  at  Eutin,  December  18, 
1786,  although  the  date  is  questioned.  He 
was  an  invalid  from  birth,  and  suffered  all 
his  days  with  a  hip  disease.  He  studied 
music  at  an  early  age,  and  Beethoven's  satir- 
ical statement  that  Weber  entered  music  so 
late  that  he  could  attain  nothing  beyond  the 
art  of  pleasing  is  disproved  by  a  set  of  fu- 
ghettas,  or  fugal  expositions,  which  the  boy 
wrote  at  eleven  years  of  age,  and  which  still 
exist.  The  lad  was  bred  in  a  theatrical 


216    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

atmosphere  from  the  very  outset.  His 
father  was  connected  with  the  stage,  and 
the  young  Weber  came  in  constant  contact 
with  singers  and  actors.  The  theatrical 
flavor  of  even  his  sonatas  is  noticeable, 
and  this  footlight  character  is  by  no  means 
to  be  regarded  as  a  defect  in  his  operas. 

Weber's  musical  training,  although  begun 
early,  was  by  no  means  regular.  His  chief 
teacher  was  the  celebrated  Abb6  Vogler, 
whom  Browning  celebrated  in  verse,  who 
taught  Meyerbeer,  whom  Mozart  cordially 
detested  and  called  a  charlatan,  but  who 
seems  to  have  had  success  with  his  pupils, 
nevertheless.  The  same  Abt  Vogler  was  an 
eccentric  character,  who  boasted,  "  I  can 
make  a  composer  in  three  weeks,  and  a  good 
singer  in  six  months."  He  certainly  made  a 
good  composer  of  Weber  in  a  short  time. 

Weber  seems  to  have  been  a  very  wild  and 
immoral  youth.  His  indiscretions  became  so 
numerous  that  he  was  finally  expelled  from 


A  Batch  of  Operatic  Composers.       217 

the  city  of  Stuttgart  by  the  king's  order. 
In  1810,  however,  there  seems  to  have  been 
a  great  and  sudden  change  for  the  better, 
and  the  composer  became  more  earnest  and 
artistic.  He  married  Caroline  Brandt  in 
1817,  and  her  pure  influence  upon  him  was 
of  the  most  beneficial  character. 

In  1821  Weber  became  the  operatic  liber- 
ator of  Germany.  Instead  of  following  the 
decadent  Italian  school,  our  composer  set 
himself  about  writing  an  opera  that  should 
be  distinctly  German,  and  "  Der  Freischiitz  " 
was  the  result.  This  opera  was  produced  in 
Berlin,  June  18,  1821,  and  was  a  work  to 
which  the  overused  adjective  "epoch-mak- 
ing" may  be  justly  applied.  There  was  a 
short  battle,  almost  as  vehement  as  the  fight 
between  Gluckism  and  Piccinism  had  been  a 
half  century  before,  and  once  more  the  higher 
art  vanquished  the  lower.  German  opera  was 
born. 

Weber  afterwards  wrote  "  Euryanthe  "  for 


2 1 8     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

Vienna,  and,  although  handicapped  by  an 
absurd  libretto,  won  fair  success  there. 
Here  he  met  Beethoven,  and  a  reconciliation 
was  effected  between  the  pair,  who  had  been 
long  estranged. 

Weber  was  so  thoroughly  imbued  with  the 
spirit  of  German  national  music,  that  he  was 
able  to  produce  folk-songs  that  may  almost 
be  regarded  as  national  hymns.  Such  a 
work  is  the  stirring  "  Sword-song,"  set  to  the 
words  which  the  great  poet  Korner  wrote  on 
the  day  before  he  met  his  death  in  battle : 

"  Thou  sword  at  my  side  glancing, 
What  means  this  gleam  entrancing  ? 
Gazest  with  pride  on  me, 
Say  what  can  the  meaning  be  ? 

"  I  am  a  freeman's  treasure, 
That  fills  thy  sword  with  pleasure. 
Where  tyrants  bar  the  way 
There  will  we  join  the  fray." 

A  poem  which  in  verse  after  verse  breathes 
forth  the  love  of  liberty,  and  in  which  there 


A  Batch  of  Operatic  Composers.      219 

was  no  mesalliance  in  the  wedding  of  music 
to  the  words. 

The  death  of  Weber  was  a  heroic  one  ;  he 
was  very  ill  when  the  munificent  patron-city 
of  art,  London,  sent  for  him  to  conduct  one 
of  his  operas  in  England.  Covent  Garden 
Theatre  offered  one  thousand  pounds  for  the 
privilege  of  hearing  "  Oberon  "  for  the  first 
time,  under  the  direction  of  the  composer. 
Weber  knew  that  he  was  near  his  end,  but 
he  wished  to  provide  for  his  family,  and 
therefore,  invalid  as  he  was,  he  led  the 
first  performance  in  London,  April  12,  1826. 
Other  English  concerts  followed.  It  was  his 
last  triumph.  June  5,  1826,  he  was  found 
dead  in  his  bed,  in  London.  He  had  won 
the  prize  for  his  wife,  but  had  given  up  his 
life  in  the  effort. 

Weber's  scoring  is  something  especially 
brilliant ;  he  achieved  new  effects  with  the 
orchestra,  such  as  even  Beethoven  could  not 
understand.  He  loved  the  horns  and  the 


220    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

clarinet,  and  these  instruments  owe  some 
of  their  most  striking  effects  to  his  dis- 
coveries. Following  Gluck,  it  was  a  most 
natural  thing  that  Weber  should  lead  to  a 
greater  development  in  the  same  direction; 
he  was  the  guide-post  that  pointed  out  the 
path  to  a  still  higher  ideal,  which  afterwards 
culminated  in  some  of  the  operas  of  Richard 
Wagner. 


RICHARD    WAGNER 


CHAPTER    X. 

WAGNER:  HIS  LIFE  AND  THEORIES. 

WE  have  already  stated  the  causes  which 
made  a  reform  in  opera  necessary,  and  we 
have  seen  how  Gluck  and  Weber  in  some 
degree  attempted  this  reform ;  but  a  more 
radical  reformer  was  required,  it  needed  an 
absolute  iconoclast  to  break  the  fetters  in 
which  poetry  was  bound  by  music,  it  required 
a  genius,  and  a  bold  one,  to  restore  the 
proper  relationship  between  the  two  arts. 
This  genius  was  born  in  Leipzig,  May  22, 
1813,  and  was  named  Wilhelm  Richard 
Wagner.  His  father,  an  actuary  and  chief 
of  police  of  the  city,  died  the  same  year. 
His  mother  married  again,  this  time  an  actor 


222    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

at  the  Dresden  Theatre,  named  Ludwig 
Geyer,  a  man  of  artistic  tastes  and  con- 
siderable ability,  a  stepfather  who  became  a 
loving  parent  to  the  young  boy,  who  had  as 
yet  shown  no  especial  talent. 

Like  Schumann,  Wagner  ripened  late ;  at 
seven  he  was  able  to  strum  a  couple  of  simple 
tunes  on  the  piano,  and  the  stepfather,  then 
lying  on  his  death-bed,  murmured  :  "  I  wonder 
if  the  boy  has  any  talent  for  music."  The 
talent  then  suspected  never  took  the  direc- 
tion of  technical  ability,  for  to  the  end  of  his 
days  Wagner  was  a  most  inferior  performer. 

During  his  childhood,  which  was  chiefly 
spent  in  Dresden,  the  boy  exhibited  a  strong 
tendency  towards  poetry ;  he  wrote  an  ode 
on  the  death  of  a  schoolmate,  which  was 
printed,  and  he  concocted  a  terrific  tragedy, 
a  mixture  of  "  King  Lear,"  "  Hamlet,"  and 
"Titus  Andronicus,"  in  which  he  was  so 
sanguinary  that  he  killed  all  his  characters 
in  the  first  act,  and,  not  wishing  to  shorten 


Wagner :  His  Life  and  Theories.     223 

his  play,  caused  their  ghosts  to  return  to 
carry  on  the  rest  of  the  tragedy. 

In  1828,  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  Wagner 
went  to  Leipzig,  to  the  Nicolai  School.  This 
was  a  most  important  trip,  for  he  now  at- 
tended the  Gewandhaus  concerts,  and  for 
the  first  time  heard  the  symphonies  and 
overtures  of  Beethoven.  It  was  like  the 
touch  of  a  magician's  wand ;  he  at  once 
became  a  musician,  a  composer.  He  tried 
to  write  music  to  his  own  blood-and-thunder 
plays,  but  found  himself  balked  by  a  lack 
of  knowledge ;  therefore  he  began  taking 
lessons  of  Gottlieb  Miiller,  a  martinet  who 
did  not  understand  his  pupil  at  all,  but  tried 
to  turn  the  mountain  torrent  into  a  Dutch 
canal.  The  too  strict  enforcing  of  pedantic 
rules  led  to  an  explosion  in  which  the  pupil 
was  even  less  respectful  to  his  master  than 
Beethoven  had  been  to  Haydn. 

A  second  teacher  had  the  wisdom  to  see 
that  he  was  dealing  with  an  exceptional 


224    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

nature  ;  this  was  Theodore  Weinlig,  cantor 
at  the  Thomas  School  (where  Bach  had 
taught),  who  led  Wagner  to  an  understand- 
ing of  the  methods  of  Mozart  and  other  con- 
servative masters.  In  about  six  months  the 
training  was  completed,  and  this  half  year 
seems  to  have  been  all  the  teaching  that 
Wagner  ever  received.  But  the  reader  must 
not  be  deceived  by  this  statement ;  in  "  The 
Master  -  singers  of  Nuremberg"  Wagner 
causes  Walther  to  respond  to  the  query  as 
to  where  he  had  studied,  "Walther  von  der 
Vogelweide  was  my  master,"  whereupon  the 
narrow-minded  Beckmesser  cavils,  "A  good 
master,  but  long  since  dead !  "  Wagner  in 
the  same  manner  had  a  teacher  who  had 
passed  from  the  land  of  the  living,  for 
Beethoven  was  absolutely  and  almost  en- 
tirely the  teacher  of  the  young  aspirant,  who 
studied  his  scores  with  an  enthusiasm  that 
soon  made  him  the  best  Beethoven  student 
in  all  Germany. 


Wagner  :  His  Life  and  Theories.     225 

As  a  youth  Wagner  tried  his  hand  at 
symphony,  sonata,  and  overture ;  but  he  was 
not  fitted  for  this  symmetrical  school,  and 
his  symphony  and  sonata  seem  almost  puer- 
ile, and  bear  no  comparison  to  his  later 
works. 

In  1833  we  find  the  incipient  composer  in 
Wiirzburg  occupied  as  chorus-master  at  the 
opera,  all  his  family  being  more  or  less 
connected  with  operatic  performances.  His 
family  at  this  time  regarded  him  as  a  very 
unpractical  person  who  was  unlikely  to  win 
success  in  any  branch  of  music.  His  first 
opera  was  now  composed  ;  it  was  founded 
upon  the  style  of  Auber  and  Bellini,  whom 
the  youth  now  regarded  as  stage  models, 
and  was  entitled  "  The  Fairies."  It  is  a 
farrago  of  sensationalism  which  has  now 
very  sensibly  been  withdrawn  from  the  stage  ; 
it  presents  every  conventionality,  a  mad- 
scene,  slumber-song,  transformation-scene, 
etc.,  and  in  its  music  there  is  only  now  and 


226     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

then  a  glimpse  of  the  boldness  of  the  radical. 
In  listening  to  the  performances  of  this  work 
in  Munich,  in  1888,  it  was  difficult  to  imagine 
that  the  creator  of  such  an  opera  could  ever 
make  his  mark  in  music ;  it  was  another 
proof  of  the  lateness  of  Wagner's  develop- 
ment. His  second  opera,  "  Das  Liebesver- 
bot,"  was  a  rather  immoral  perversion  of 
Shakespeare's  "  Measure  for  Measure." 

In  1834  Wagner  became  director  at 
Magdeburg,  where  the  bankruptcy  of  the 
theatre  soon  set  in  and  forced  him  to 
wander  further.  We  next  find  him  (in  1836) 
at  Konigsberg,  and  the  subsequent  year  at 
Riga.  Here  he  married  a  beautiful  actress, 
Wilhelmina  Planer,  whom  he  had'  followed 
from  Magdeburg.  This  marriage  led  to  no 
happy  results,  for  Wagner  demanded  abso- 
lute homage  from  those  around  him,  and  a 
full  belief  in  his  powers,  and  this  unhappy 
woman  could  not  comprehend  his  genius ;  but 
poor  Minna  Planer  was  an  uncomplaining 


Wagner:  His  Life  and  Theories.     227 

wife  to  him  through  all  the  dark  days 
which  followed,  through  the  dismal  voyages, 
through  the  semi-starvation  in  Paris ;  she 
sacrificed  her  own  career  without  a  murmur 
(she  had  been  a  very  promising  actress  and 
singer),  and  became  a  household  drudge  amid 
the  gloomiest  surroundings.  This  counted 
for  nothing  with  Wagner,  who  generally 
looked  only  at  his  own  side  of  a  question ; 
he  separated  from  his  faithful  helpmate  in 
1 86 1,  and  Minna  Planer  died,  isolated,  in 
1866.  The  ultra- Wagnerians  have  used  a 
great  deal  of  whitewash  in  this  matter,  but 
have  not  been  able  to  obliterate  the  stain. 
Wagner  was  ungrateful  here  as  he  was  in 
many  other  parts  of  his  career ;  but  we  must 
learn  to  discriminate  between  the  man  and 
the  artist ;  as  a  man  Wagner  had  many 
base  attributes,  as  an  artist  he  was  ready 
to  lay  down  his  life,  to  be  tortured  to  death, 
for  his  ideal ;  there  is  no  instance  in  the 
entire  realm  of  musical  history,  not  even  in 


228     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

the  self-abnegating  labors  of  Bach  and  Pales- 
trina,  of  such  entire  and  loyal  devotion  to  an 
art-ideal ;  no  man  dare  attempt  to  strike  the 
balance  between  these  two  natures  of  a 
single  being. 

To  return  to  Riga :  Wagner  was  now 
beginning  to  develop  his  grandiose  views  in 
opera,  although  he  had  as  yet  attained  none 
of  his  theories.  He  was  composing  a  great 
heroic  opera  ("  Rienzi")  in  1838,  and  in  the 
next  year  he  determined  to  venture  all  in 
order  to  give  this  work  its  proper  setting  ; 
he  decided  that  the  Paris  Grand  Opera  was 
the  only  place  where  such  a  work  could  have 
its  appropriate  performance,  and  therefore  set 
out  on  a  voyage  to  that  city  accompanied 
by  his  wife,  a  large  dog  (Wagner  was  always 
very  fond  of  animal  pets),  and  the  precious, 
though  unfinished,  score.  Terrific  storms 
twice  threatened  the  party  with  shipwreck, 
and  the  composer  was  glad  to  stay  in  Lon- 
don awhile,  before  completing  his  journey. 


Wagner:  His  Life  and  Theories.      229 

This  voyage  was  the  seed  whence  sprang  the 
graphic  opera  of  "  The  Flying  Dutchman." 

In  Paris  he  was  met  by  disappointment 
on  every  side.  Meyerbeer  tried  to  assist  him 
(Wagner  once  told  a  friend  :  "  Had  it  not 
been  for  Meyerbeer  my  wife  and  I  would 
have  starved  in  Paris "),  but  the  operatic 
managers  held  aloof.  Writing  musical  arti- 
cles for  the  press,  arranging  operas  for 
piano,  cornet,  and  what  not,  and  the  com- 
position of  some  very  fine  songs,  kept  abso- 
lute hunger  at  bay.  Meyerbeer  induced 
Fillet,  of  the  Grand  Opera,  to  send  for  the 
young  composer,  but  little  came  of  it  save 
that  Fillet  bought  the  libretto  of  "  The  Fly- 
ing Dutchman  "  for  five  hundred  francs. 

In  1840  Wagner  turned  to  Germany  for 
help  and  sent  his  "  Rienzi "  to  Dresden, 
where  it  was  promptly  accepted.  It  was  the 
turning-point  of  his  career  ;  "  Rienzi  "  made 
a  tremendous  success,  and  the  days  of  strug- 
gle were  apparently  over.  In  1841  the  com- 


230    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

poser  was  snugly  installed  as  kapellmeister 
(conductor)  in  Dresden,  and  the  future  path 
seemed  plain. 

Here  we  come  to  another  proof  of  Wag- 
ner's superb  honesty  in  art  matters.  Some 
of  the  English  Philistines  have  written  an- 
imadversions upon  Wagner,  stating  that  his 
theories  were  born  of  pique  and  of  inability 
to  write  in  the  regular  paths  of  opera. 
"  Rienzi "  gives  the  lie  to  this  absurd  state- 
ment ;  all  that  Dresden  wanted  of  Wagner 
was  more  of  the  same  sort ;  but  the  com- 
poser was  beginning  to  suspect  that  "  Ri- 
enzi "  did  not  represent  the  highest  operatic 
art,  and  deliberately  left  the  smooth  path  in 
which  certain  success  awaited  him,  to  push 
along  the  thorny  road  of  reform ;  his  "  Fly- 
ing Dutchman"  (true  dramatic  ideal)  dis- 
appointed many,  although  Spohr  was  made 
a  convert  by  it;  his  "Tannhauser"  disap- 
pointed everybody. 

Here  was  national  opera,   "  German  from 


Wagner:  His  Life  and  Theories.     231 

top  to  toe,"  continuity  of  action  and  music, 
dramatic  meaning,  yet  the  public  would  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  Wagner  did  not 
recede  (here,  indeed,  was  the  material  of 
which  art-martyrs  are  made),  but  pushed 
on  still  further  towards  the  light.  The  abso- 
lute opposite  of  Meyerbeer,  he  cared  not  at 
all  for  the  opinion  of  the  public,  but  only  for 
the  advancement  of  music  as  he  understood 
it.  In  later  days  he  disavowed  even  these 
operas  as  not  representing  his  full  theories, 
but  "  The  Flying  Dutchman "  and  "  Tann- 
hauser"  may  be  accepted  as  examples  of  a 
purer  and  truer  operatic  vein  than  had  before 
existed,  in  spite  of  the  composer's  interdict. 

Still  pressing  forward,  Wagner  began 
sketching  something  even  bolder  in  "  Lohen- 
grin," but  there  were  to  be  stirring  events 
between  the  inception  of  this  opera  and  its 
completion.  The  revolutionary  movement 
of  1848  drew  Wagner  into  its  vortex.  Al- 
though there  is  some  dispute  as  to  how 


232    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

closely  the  composer  was  associated  with  the 
radicals  in  this  movement,  there  is  little 
doubt  that  he  made  speeches  urging  that 
Saxony  ought  to  be  free  and  that  he  was  at 
the  barricades  during  the  actual  fighting  in 
May,  1849.  As  a  consequence,  when  the 
royal  troops  had  dispersed  the  rioters,  Wag- 
ner found  himself  proscribed  and  obliged  to 
fly  for  his  life ;  he  fled  to  Weimar,  to  Liszt, 
who  had  known  him  in  Paris,  and  who  now 
and  henceforth  ,was  one  of  his  most  devoted 
friends.  Liszt  smuggled  him  safely  across 
the  frontier,  and  Wagner  hastened,  via  Paris, 
to  Switzerland.  A  long  period  of  exile  was 
to  ensue,  but  Wagner  was  no  longer  a  starv- 
ing neophyte.  He  was  now  a  well-known 
composer  and  conductor,  and  the  period  of 
exile  gave  him  just  the  required  leisure  to 
examine  more  thoroughly  into  the  theories 
of  art  which  he  saw  glimmering  upon  his 
horizon.  He  saw  also  that  the  public  must 
be  educated  to  a  higher  ideal,  and  began  to 


Wagner:  His  Life  and  Theories.     233 

become  a  pamphleteer,  as  Gluck  had  been 
before  him  in  a  similar  situation. 

He  did  not  confine  his  pamphlets  to  defin- 
ing his  music,  but  fiercely  attacked  whatever 
stood  in  his  way.  He  found  the  public 
adoration  of  Meyerbeer  a  stumbling-block, 
and  therefore  not  only  attacked  this  com- 
poser but  extended  his  virulence  to  his  entire 
race,  root  and  branch ;  his  pamphlet  on 
"  Judaism  in  Music,"  an  impeachment  of  the 
most  musical  race  of  the  world  as  being  un- 
musical, although  published  under  a  false 
name  ("K.  Freigedank  "),  was  speedily  traced 
home  to  Wagner,  and  had  the  effect  of  rivet- 
ing the  public  attention  to  the  strivings  of 
a  man  who  was  so  audacious. 

Meanwhile  a  new  factor  in  his  advance 
had  begun  to  exert  itself ;  he  had  read  the 
works  of  the  pessimistic  philosopher,  Scho- 
penhauer, and  in  these  had  found  a  confirma- 
tion of  his  views,  and  food  for  the  evolution 
of  new  theories.  The  result  was  a  new 


234    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

school  of  music.  As  the  public  could  no^ 
appreciate  anything  so  much  in  advance  of 
its  accepted  ideas,  Wagner  appealed  to  pos- 
terity and  called  his  compositions  "  the  music 
of  the  future ; "  but  progress  came  more 
speedily  than  he  had  imagined.  He  lived  to 
see  his  music  on  the  very  top  wave  of  popu- 
larity, and  "  the  music  of  the  future "  has 
very  decidedly  become  "the  music  of  the 
present."  The  theories  on  which  this  new 
school  was  founded  are  chiefly  these  : 

ist.  The  abolition  of  conventional  forms. 
That  musical  sandwich  which  is  called  the 
"Aria"  found  no  place  in  Wagner's  later 
works ;  he  desired  that  the  composer  should 
not  be  trammelled  by  an  architectural  plan. 

2nd.  Continuity  and  unity.  The  opera 
was  not  to  subdivide  itself  into  "  a  string  of 
pretty  pearls,"  but  was  to  be  one  large  in- 
divisible gem.  The  music  was  to  flow  on 
continuously,  and  all  such  divisions  as  give 
rise  to  interpolated  applause,  encores,  etc., 


Wagner:  His  Life  and  Theories.     235 

were   abolished ;    a  vast   step   in   the  right 
direction. 

$rd.  The  proper  union  and  relationship 
of  poetry  and  music  were  insisted  upon. 
One  cannot  too  strongly  praise  this  point, 
which  Gluck  had  first  explained,  but  which 
Wagner  riveted  on  modern  opera.  He  im- 
pressed this  truth  in  many  ways  in  his 
pamphlets,  and  still  more  effectively  in  his 
works.  "  Music  is  the  handmaid  of  poetry  ; " 
"  In  the  wedding  of  these  two  arts,  poetry  is 
the  man,  music  the  woman  ; "  "  Poetry  must 
lead,  music  must  follow  ;  "  these  were  a  few 
of  the  apothegms  which  may  be  found  in 
Wagner's  writings.  Herbert  Spencer  had 
arraigned  certain  kinds  of  songs  in  these 
words  :  "  They  are  compositions  which  sci- 
ence would  forbid.  They  sin  against  science 
by  setting  to  music  ideas  that  are  not  emo- 
tional enough  to  prompt  musical  expression, 
and  they  also  sin  against  science  by  using 
musical  phrases  that  have  no  natural  relation 


236     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

to  the  ideas  expressed,  even  when  these  are 
emotional.  They  are  bad  because  they  are 
untrue,  and  to  say  that  they  are  untrue  is  to 
say  that  they  are  unscientific." 

If  we  weigh  the  favorite  sextet  from 
"Lucia"  in  these  scales,  we  shall  find  that  it 
is  utterly  wanting.  But  Wagner  summed 
up  Herbert  Spencer's  views  in  three  words, 
—  words  which  deserve  to  be  emblazoned  on 
the  walls  of  every  school  of  composition,  — 
"  Music  is  Truth  !  " 

Judged  by  this  correct  standard  very  much 
of  the  music  of  Rossini,  Donizetti,  etc.,  is  a  lie. 

4tk.  Wagner  held  that  mere  melody  was 
unnecessary  in  music.  He  returned  to  the 
melodic  recitative  in  which  the  first  operatic 
composers  had  endeavored  to  imitate  the 
speaking  voice  with  the  singing  one.  Wag- 
ner called  this  recitative  the  "  Melos,"  and  all 
his  later  operas  are  founded  upon  it.  This 
may  be  called  one  of  the  moot  points  of  the 
Wagnerian  school ;  it  is  by  no  means  proven 


Wagner:  His  Life  and  Theories.     237 

that  music  would  be  advanced  by  the  aboli- 
tion of  symmetrical  tune,  yet  one  must 
warmly  defend  Wagner  from  the  charge  of 
inability  to  write  direct  and  comprehensible 
tunes ;  his  operas  up  to  the  time  of  "  Lohen- 
grin "  are  full  of  definite  melody,  and  in  the 
later  works,  notably  in  "  The  Master-singers," 
there  are  melodies  of  ineffable  beauty. 

5//2.  Wagner  did  not  believe  in  formality 
in  the  treatment  of  keys.  With  him  the 
relationship  of  keys  was  at  any  and  all  times 
utterly  free.  He  called  this  freedom  of  mod- 
ulation "  swimming  in  a  sea  of  tone,"  and 
was  able  to  achieve  wonderful  effects  with  it, 
but  lesser  composers  in  imitating  this  bold- 
ness only  become  vague ;  they  drown  in  the 
above  mentioned  sea ! 

6th.  Wagner  believed  that  if  music  must 
be  true  to  poetry,  poetry  must  be  true  to 
itself;  the  librettos  were  to  be  worthy  of 
musical  setting.  In  previous  times  the  li- 
brettos had  often  become  so  absurd  that  the 


238    Great,  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

French  had  a  saying  —  "  Whatever  is  too 
stupid  to  be  spoken  may  be  sung !  "  Wagner 
held  that  a  libretto  to  be  worthy  of  operatic 
treatment  should  be  able  to  make  its  way 
without  music,  also ;  it  should  be  worthy  of 
production  as  a  play.  Here  again  one  must 
pay  homage  to  the  reforms  of  a  genius,  and 
Verdi,  let  him  deny  the  soft  impeachment  as 
he  will,  was  obliged  to  forsake  his  weak  opera 
librettos  because  Wagner  had  brought  a 
purer  atmosphere  in  this  field.  Some  of 
Wagner's  librettos,  his  own  productions,  are 
dramatic  gems  of  the  first  water. 

7th.  Wagner  employed  the  orchestra  as 
an  important  part  of  the  dramatic  picture, 
even  as  Gluck  had  done ;  but  he  went  far 
beyond  Gluck,  not  only  in  intensity  and 
power  but  in  causing  his  orchestra  to  speak 
a  definite  language  by  means  of  the  Leit- 
motif. This  guiding-figure  may  be  defined 
as  a  musical  figure,  sometimes  a  phrase, 
which  is  attached  to  some  person,  or  thing, 


Wagner:  His  Life  and  Theories.     239 

or  event,  in  the  opera.  Naturally,  therefore, 
it  must  be  expressive  in  character,  and  it  re- 
quires genius  to  give  the  cruel  character  of 
Hunding,  the  solemn  warning  of  Lohengrin, 
the  coaxing  tenderness  of  Eva,  the  imperious 
power  of  Siegfried,  the  mournful  foreboding 
of  Fate,  in  a  few  notes.  The  use  of  a  guid- 
ing-figure was  not  the  invention  of  Wagner, 
but  no  composer  has  ever  used  this  device 
so  finely  or  so  freely  as  he. 

As  the  figure  must  always  be  clearly  re- 
cognized, it  being  a  clue  to  the  action,  it  can- 
not be  treated  so  freely  as  symphonists  treat 
their  figures  in  development ;  it  is  generally 
treated  only  by  transposition  and  by  chang- 
ing the  accompanying  harmonies.  Even  a 
talented  composer  might  readily  become 
monotonous  in  employing  such  a  device, 
but  Wagner  never  approaches  prosiness  in 
his  repetitions. 

The  criticaster  at  once  jumps  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  Leit-motif  must  be  a  childish 


240    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

labelling  of  the  various  characters,  that  Hund- 
ing,  Siegfried,  Elsa,  and  everybody  else  go 
about  wearing  musical  tickets  of  identifica- 
tion. Never  was  a  more  mistaken  conclu- 
sion !  The  guiding-figure  sometimes  allows  us 
to  look  into  the  very  mind  and  soul  of  the 
characters,  and  fulfils  in  the  modern  opera 
almost  exactly  the  function  of  the  chorus  in 
the  old  Greek  tragedies ;  the  orchestra  is 
giving  a  series  of  comments  and  explanations 
to  the  trained  auditor,  just  as  the  old  cho- 
rus-chanters did  in  the  plays  of  ^Eschylus, 
Euripides  or  Sophocles. 

These  are  not  all  of  the  theories  of  Wag- 
ner, for  he  extended  his  views  as  far  as  the 
architecture  of  the  theatre  and  the  concealing 
of  the  orchestra,  but  the  above  are  sufficient 
to  show  that,  while  not  every  jot  and  tittle 
may  be  accepted  by  posterity,  the  world  may 
be  very  grateful  for  the  vast  amount  of  truth 
forced  into  a  school  that  was  full  of  error,  by 
Wagner. 


Wagner:  His  Life  and  Theories.     241 

The  national  spirit  which  permeated  most 
of  Wagner's  works  was  an  outcome  of  his 
theories,  and  this  nationality  in  music  is 
bringing  a  new  life-blood  into  modern  art, 
Grieg,  Tschaikowsky,  Dvorak,  and  a  host 
of  others  bringing  their  native  melodies  into 
instrumental  and  operatic  music. 

During  the  early  part  of  Wagner's  exile, 
his  loyal  friend,  Liszt,  brought  out  "  Lohen- 
grin "  at  Weimar.  It  is  almost  incredible 
that  all  the  critics  joined  in  a  hue  and  cry 
against  this  opera,  finding  it  unmelodious  (!), 
formless,  meaningless,  and  holding  it  up 
as  the  quintessence  of  all  that  is  bad  in 
music.  Almost  every  witling  in  Germany 
found  opportunity  to  make  his  little  fling 
at  the  new  work,  but  Wagner  cared  little 
for  this  ;  he  was  already  far  beyond  "  Lohen- 
grin "  in  his  pursuit  of  an  operatic  ideal,  he 
was  beginning  the  largest  work  of  his  life, 
the  vastest  musical  work  ever  dreamed  of, 
the  trilogy. 


242    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

The  first  inception  of  this  was  in  the  opera 
of  "  Siegfried,"  but  the  story  of  the  Teutonic 
demigod  was  not  complete,  to  his  mind,  with- 
out Siegfried's  death  being  also  portrayed ; 
after  this  the  composer-poet  began  to  see 
that  the  causes  which  led  to  Siegfried's 
career  must  be  shown,  and  finally  he  de- 
cided to  tell  with  some  completeness  the 
entire  story  of  the  Ring  of  the  Nibelungs. 
Never  had  such  a  vast  work  entered  into 
the  brain  of  man  !  Here  we  have  a  wonder- 
ful proof  of  the  greatness  of  Wagner's  in- 
domitable nature  on  the  artistic  side  ;  it  was 
utterly  impossible  that  any  operatic  manager 
would  ever  accept  a  work  that  occupied  four 
nights  in  its  performance,  that  demanded  vo- 
calists that  should  be  of  superhuman  musical 
abilities  and  a  stage  setting  that  would  seem 
to  require  the  wealth  of  a  king ;  yet  the  conv 
poser  labored  on  at  the  seemingly  useless 
task  in  obedience  to  that  must  that  whispers 
its  command  to  genius  only.  Once  he  wrote 


Wagner  :  His  Life  and  Theories.     243 

to  a  friend  the  loftiest  words  ever  penned  by 
a  musician,  —  "If  I  live  to  complete  this 
work  I  shall  have  lived  gloriously;  if  I  die 
before  it  is  done  I  shall  have  died  for  some- 
thing beautiful ! " 

But  the  thought  came  to  him  that  if  he 
died  with  his  magnum  opus  incomplete  the 
world  would  never  know  the  entire  meaning 
of  his  theories.  He  therefore  suspended  his 
labors  long  enough  to  write  a  shorter  work 
which  should  be  quite  complete,  and  should 
embody  in  itself  all  of  his  theories  of  the 
music-drama.  "  Tristan  and  Isolde,"  the  first 
embodiment  of  all  Wagner's  theories  (1857- 
59),  was  the  outcome  of  this  idea.  As  he 
wanted  to  make  the  work  as  practicable  as 
possible,  he  scored  it  for  a  smaller  orchestra 
than  he  used  in  his  trilogy,  and  he  made  no 
excessive  demands  in  the  matter  of  stage 
setting,  but  in  the  matter'  of  vocal  and 
orchestral  difficulties  he  placed  no  restric- 
tions upon  himself.  The  trilogy,  with  this 


244    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

and  other  interruptions,  required  about 
twenty-five  years  for  its  completion ! 

In  1 86 1  Wagner  gave  another  proof  of 
his  fidelity  to  his  ideals.  Princess  Metter- 
nich  took  the  composer  under  her  protec- 
tion, and  not  only  obtained  permission  for 
Wagner  to  return  to  Germany,  but  managed 
to  get  Napoleon  III.  to  produce  "  Tann- 
hauser"  with  all  possible  splendor  at  the 
Grand  Opera.  In  Paris  it  is  the  custom 
to  interweave  a  ballet  into  each  opera,  or 
at  the  very  least  to  interpolate  one  between 
the  acts.  The  roue's  of  the  Jockey  Club,  who 
held  many  of  the  ballet  dancers  under  their 
special  protection,  demanded  their  ballet  in 
"Tannhauser."  Wagner  replied  that  a 
series  of  tableaux  might  be  introduced  into 
the  first  act,  at  the  Court  of  Venus,  but 
nothing  else  could  be  permitted. 

At  the  same  time  Wagner  made  another 
heroic  sacrifice  to  his  theories.  The  over- 
ture to  the  opera  had  been  its  most  sue- 


Wagner:  His  Life  and  Theories.     245 

cessful  number;  its  inspiring  climax  in  the 
triumph  of  religion,  as  typified  in  the  apo- 
theosis of  the  "  Pilgrim's  Chorus,"  is  one 
of  the  supreme  moments  of  the  work ;  but 
a  separate  overture  did  not  coincide  with 
the  "Theories,"  and  it  must  therefore  be 
sacrificed.  The  effective  trombone  and  violin 
passage  was  cut  out,  and  in  its  stead  a  rather 
dreary  transition  into  the  first  scene  of  the 
opera  was  composed,  which  we  are  glad  to 
say  is  seldom  played  to-day,  the  world  re- 
fusing to  ride  the  composer's  hobby-horse, 
and  recognizing  the  grandeur  of  the  original 
overture. 

The  Jockey  Club  was  up  in  arms  at  the 
slight  put  upon  its  female  friends  by  a 
mere  art-monger,  and  the  three  perform- 
ances of  the  opera  were  nothing  more  than 
riots,  scarcely  a  note  of  the  music  being 
audible.  After  these  troubles  the  work 
was  withdrawn,  but  Wagner  had  carried 
his  point,  there  was  no  ballet  introduced. 


246    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

Meyerbeer  would  have  introduced  a  fire 
brigade  or  a  merry-go-round  had  the  Jockey 
Club  demanded  it  of  him. 

It  became  darkest  before  the  dawn.  In 
1864  even  Wagner's  undaunted  spirit  began 
to  give  way.  He  published  the  libretto  of. 
the  trilogy  with  a  sad  preface,  stating  that 
there  was  no  hope  of  ever  bringing  the  work 
to  completion.  Just  at  that  time  a  king 
came  to  his  aid.  Ludwig  II.  mounted  the 
throne  of  Bavaria,  and  one  of  his  first  acts 
was  to  invite  the  composer  to  come  to  him 
that  he  might  finish  the  great  German  art- 
work in  comfort.  It  was  Liszt  and  Ludwig  II. 
of  Bavaria  who  saved  Wagner  to  the  world. 

All  was  changed  in  an  instant.  Not  only 
comfort  but  luxury  surrounded  the  composer 
henceforth.  "  Tristan  and  Isolde  "  was  per- 
formed under  the  best  conditions  June  10, 
1865,  and  the  same  year,  in  a  charming 
villa  on  Lake  Luzerne,  he  set  about  com- 
pleting "Die  Meistersinger,"  probably  his 


Wagner:  His  Life  and  Theories.      247 

best  opera,  in  the  mind  of  the  author  the 
best  opera  of  the  entire  repertoire  of  the 
world. 

This  was  no  story  of  gods  and  demigods, 
no  ponderous  national  myth,  but  a  delightful 
tale  of  human  joys  and  sorrows,  a  perfect 
picture  of  mediaeval  life,  a  sittenbild,  and 
possessing  a  libretto  (Wagner  always  wrote 
his  own  librettos)  equal  to  the  comedies  of 
the  great  masters  of  literature.  It  was  in 
some  degree  an  autobiography,  certainly  as 
much  so  as  "  David  Copperfield  "  was  Dick- 
ens's  own  life-story,  Sachs  being  meant  for 
Liszt,  Beckmesser  for  Hiller,  and  Walther 
for  Wagner  himself.  This  glorious  opera 
was  first  produced  in  Munich  June  21,  1868. 

In  1870  Wagner  married  the  divorced 
wife  of  Von  Biilow,  Cosima,  the  illegitimate 
daughter  of  Liszt.  One  cannot  place  this 
love-story  quite  beside  the  pure  tale  of 
Schumann  and  Clara  Wieck,  yet  there  are 
points  of  similarity,  and  as  Clara  Schumann 


248     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

devoted  her  whole  long  life  to  making  the 
works  of  her  dead  husband  known  to  the 
world,  so  Madame  Wagner  lives  to  spread 
the  propaganda  of  the  school  of  the  future, 
the  operas  of  her  idolized  spouse.  If  we 
can  set  aside  the  fact  that  there  was  much 
that  was  illicit  in  this  passion,  that  the 
marriage  and  subsequent  happiness  was  built 
upon  the  sorrows  of  others,  then  the  union 
was  a  glorious  one.  Cosima  Wagner  wor- 
shipped her  husband  and  understood  him  ; 
she  became  his  inspiration,  his  true  help- 
mate, and  he  gave  to  her  as  much  affection 
as  his  art-love  had  left  in  his  being. 

One  may  study  the  perfection  of  the  hap- 
piness of  this  pair  in  the  "  Siegfried  Idylle," 
a  lightly  scored  but  beautiful  composition,  in 
which  Wagner  celebrates  his  wife  and  son 
(Siegfried),  and  which  was  written  secretly 
and  performed  as  a  birthday  surprise  to  his 
wife,  early  one  morning,  on  the  staircase  of 
the  little  villa  of  Lake  Luzerne.  One  may 


Wagner:  His  Life  and  Theories.      249 

study  the  affection  of  the  wife  in  the  daily 
events  of  the  last  days  in  Venice,1  in  the 
loving  care  with  which  Wagner's  working 
hours  were  guarded,  in  the  semi-insanity  of 
grief  which  followed  his  death. 

And  now  there  came  the  culmination  of 
the  great  career ;  the  mighty  "  Ring  of  the 
Nibelungs,"  the  great  trilogy,  was  approach- 
ing completion ;  the  king  had  desired  a  the- 
atre for  the  performance  in  Munich,  but 
Wagner  finally  decided  on  Bayreuth  for  the 
edifice.  Assistance  came  from  all  over  the 
world ;  volunteers  for  the  first  performances 
came  by  hundreds  from  the  ranks  of  the 
very  greatest  musicians,  and  in  August, 
1875,  the  work  which  had  seemed  an  im- 
possibility was  actually  presented,  and  more 
wonderful  still,  it  became  part  of  the  stand- 
ard repertoire  of  all  the  chief  opera-houses 
of  the  world  within  a  few  years  of  its  first 
performance  at  Bayreuth ! 

1  Elson's  "  History  of  German  Song." 


250     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

There  came  still  another  work  after  the 
trilogy;  in  "Parsifal"  one  finds  all  the 
theories  of  the  composer  carried  out  to 
the  fullest  extent. 

In  the  autumn  of  1882  Wagner  and  his 
family  went  to  Venice.  As  early  as  the 
Christmas  of  that  year  he  seems  to  have 
suffered  in  health,  and  to  have  felt  some 
premonition  of  his  death.  He  died  very 
suddenly  at  the  Palazzo  Vendramini,  his 
Venice  residence,  February  13,  1883. 

Whether  the  world  will  accept  all  of  the 
theories  which  Wagner  has  promulgated  and 
practically  carried  out  in  his  later  operas, 
may  be  doubted ;  melody  will  possibly  hold 
its  own  against  the  freer  "  Melos "  which 
Wagner  believed  in.  The  value  of  Wagner 
as  a  model  for  future  composers  may  well  be 
minimized  ;  Astyanax  cannot  be  Hector,  the 
thunderbolts  of  Jove  cannot  be  launched  by 
every  mortal.  There  is,  and  can  be,  no 
Wagner  school  in  music,  any  more  than 


Wagner:  His  Life  and  Theories.     251 

there  is  a  Shakespeare  school  of  poets. 
Wagner  stands  a  monolith ;  the  attempts  of 
young  Germany  to  bring  forth  more  Wag- 
ners are  leading  only  to  dissonance,  vague- 
ness, and  a  distortion  of  music  from  its 
proper  functions. 

Yet  Wagner  has  put  music  on  a  higher 
level ;  operatic  works  have  left  the  channel 
of  silliness  and  conventionality  in  which  they 
were  drifting,  since  his  works  have  cleared 
the  atmosphere ;  even  those  who  have  not 
copied  him,  as  Verdi,  St.  Sae'ns,  Gounod,  etc., 
have  yet  felt  his  influence.  Wagner's  com- 
bative nature,  and  his  desire  to  impress  his 
theories,  sometimes  led  him  too  far  (as  in  the 
revised  "  Tannhauser  "  music),  and  the  blue 
pencil  is  even  now  being  freely  employed  by 
earnest  Wagner  disciples ;  but  after  all  the 
subtractions  have  been  made,  after  all  the 
pedants  have  had  their  fling,  the  greatest 
musical  genius  of  the  last  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  will  still  be  Richard  Wagner. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

JOHANNES    BRAHMS. 

IN  1/99  the  following  criticisms  were 
printed  in  the  "Allgemeine  Musikzeitung " 
regarding  Beethoven ;  the  first  relates  to 
the  variations  on  "Une  Fievre  Brulante  :  " 

"  Many  of  the  modulations  may  be  regarded  in 
any  and  every  way,  they  will  still  be  and  remain  flat, 
and  the  more  learned  and  pretentious  they  strive  to 
be,  the  flatter  they  become.  There  are  too  many 
variations  published  nowadays,  without  the  com- 
posers endeavoring  to  know  what  real  variation 
means." 

The  next  relates  to  the  Trio,  Opus  1 1  : 

"  Mr.  Beethoven  could  give  us  pieces  of  great 
excellence,  if  he  would  but  write  more  naturally,  and 
without  so  much  learned  affectation." 
252 


Johannes  Brahms.  253 

And  the  following  (June,  1799)  relates  to 
Opus  10,  three  sonatas  : 

"  They  are  loaded  with  useless  difficulties.  After 
all  the  labor  and  study  of  playing  them,  they  contain 
no  pleasure  worth  the  pains.  Mr.  Van  Beethoven 
goes  his  own  path,  and  a  dreary,  eccentric,  and  tire- 
some path  it  is ;  learning,  learning,  and  nothing  but 
learning,  but  not  a  bit  of  nature  or  melody.  And 
after  all,  it  is  but  a  crude  and  undigested  learning, 
without  method  or  arrangement,  a  seeking  after 
curious  modulations,  a  hatred  of  ordinary  progres- 
sions, a  heaping  up  of  difficulties,  until  all  the 
pleasure  and  patience  are  lost." 

It  is  appropriate  to  begin  our  study  of 
Brahms  with  a  reference  to  these  criticisms, 
for  very  nearly  the  same  animadversions  are 
poured  upon  his  head  to-day  by  many  critics. 
He  is  called  an  ascetic  in  music,  a  pedant,  a 
seeker  after  ugliness,  and  what  not.  Very 
justly  has  Liszt  called  the  musical  critics 
"  the  rear  guard  of  the  musical  army  in  its 
march  of  progress."  To  the  earnest  musi- 


254     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

cal  student,  Brahms  speedily  becomes  the 
only  legitimate  successor  of  Beethoven, 
the  only  man  who  has  been  able  to  rival 
the  great  symphonist  in  the  domain  of  devel- 
opment and  treatment  of  large  instrumental 
forms,  while  in  the  vocal  field  Brahms  is 
even  Beethoven's  superior.  Had  Brahms 
had  a  more  chequered  career,  a  fiercer  battle 
with  life,  his  emotional  power  would  have  been 
greater,  and  he  would  have  been  the  abso- 
lute rival  of  his  great  predecessor.  Brahms 
was  born  at  Hamburg,  May  7,  1833,  and 
died  at  Vienna,  April  3,  1897.  His  life  is 
peculiarly  scant  in  those  events  which  seem 
to  garnish  the  biographies  of  the  great  com- 
posers ;  there  was  little  of  "  Sturm  und 
Drang,"  little  of  combat  with  affliction,  it 
was  the  life  of  a  student  who  desired  nothing 
better  than  to  work  at  his  art  all  his  days. 

His  father  was  contrabass  player  at  the 
Hamburg  Theatre.  His  mother  is  scarcely 
known  to  history  at  all ;  her  maiden  name 


Johannes  Brahms.  255 

was  Johanna  Nissen,  and  her  son  loved  her 
tenderly,  his  greatest  work  being  inspired  by 
his  one  great  life-sorrow,  —  her  death.  The 
chief  teacher  of  the  boy  was  Eduard  Marx- 
sen,  of  Altona,  the  Hamburg  suburb,  who 
laid  a  splendid  classical  foundation.  At 
fourteen  the  lad  made  a  very  successful 
public  appearance,  but,  unspoiled  by  this, 
he  went  into  retirement  again  for  five  years' 
further  study.  When  he  again  appeared, 
he  was  a  musical  giant.  He  now  made  a 
tour  with  Remenyi,  the  Hungarian  violinist, 
through  some  of  the  German  cities.  Re- 
menyi has  described  to  the  author  the  first 
meeting  with  Liszt.  The  pair  had  travelled 
all  day,  yet  the  violinist  determined  to  intro- 
duce the  young  composer  to  the  great  pianist 
at  once.  Liszt  received  both  very  graciously, 
and  soon  sat  down  at  the  piano  to  play  some 
of  his  most  recent  works  ;  at  the  end  of  a 
rather  long  work  Liszt  turned  around,  only 
to  behold  young  Brahms  comfortably  asleep 


256     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work, 

in  an  armchair !     The  rest  of  the  interview 
was  on  a  more  frigid  basis. 

But  there  was  another  artistic  interview 
soon  to  follow,  which  was  to  bear  much 
greater  fruit.  At  Gottingen  the  pair  gave 
a  concert  under  difficulties,  for  when  they 
came  to  try  the  piano  provided,  they  found 
it  so  low  in  pitch  that  Beethoven's  great 
"Kreutzer  Sonata,"  which  was  on  the  pro- 
gramme, would  have  lost  all  its  brilliancy 
had  the  violin  tuned  down  to  it.  Brahms, 
the  youth  of  nineteen  years,  thereupon  tran- 
sposed the  entire  work  from  A  to  B  flat, 
playing  it  from  memory !  The  herculean 
task  had  its  immediate  reward ;  the  greatest 
living  violinist,  Joachim,  was  present,  and 
at  once  gave  the  pianist  a  letter  of  intro- 
duction to  Schumann.  At  Diisseldorf  the 
pair  met ;  Schumann  was  already  in  his 
decadence  (this  was  in  October,  1853,  only 
four  months  before  his  attempt  at  suicide), 
but  he  was  still  keenly  alive  to  genius  in 


Johannes  Brahms.  257 

others,  and,  after  hearing  the  lad  play,  he 
rushed  to  seek  his  Clara,  and  have  her  join 
in  his  homage  to  the  rising  star.  He  had 
long  since  retired  from  active  journalism, 
but,  inspired  by  the  playing  of  Brahms  and 
the  worth  of  his  compositions,  he  again  took 
up  his  pen,  and  wrote  an  article  of  the 
utmost  importance.  The  essay  entitled 
"Neue  Bahnen"  ("New  Paths"),  in  the 
"  Neue  Zeitschrift  fiir  Musik,"  by  Schu- 
mann, spoke  of  Brahms  as  springing  full- 
fledged  into  the  arena  of  Art,  as  Minerva 
sprang  from  the  brain  of  Jove ;  it  alluded 
to  his  sonatas  as  "veiled  symphonies,"  it 
spoke  of  the  modesty  of  the  new  master, 
and  it  gave  him  the  welcome  of  his  comrades 
at  his  beginning  of  the  warfare  of  Art,  — 
"  where  wounds  perhaps  may  await  him,  but 
also  laurels." 

This  article  riveted  the  attention  of  the 
entire  musical  world  upon  Brahms.  Victor 
Hugo  has  said,  "There  is  no  heavier  bur- 


258     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

den  than  a  great  name  acquired  too  soon ; " 
but  in  the  case  of  this  young  giant,  although 
the  burden  may  have  come  very  suddenly, 
it  was  not  too  soon.  He  was  not  spoiled  by 
the  great  eulogium,  but  after  a  few  tours 
with  Joachim  and  Stockhausen,  and  a  few 
seasons  spent  as  director  at  Detmold,  we 
find  him  again  immersing  himself  in  further 
studies.  In  1862  he  went  to  Vienna,  where 
he  remained  almost  constantly  until  his  death. 
In  1866  his  mother  died,  and  he  sought  refuge 
from  his  grief  in  writing  a  "German  Re- 
quiem "  (not  a  requiem  mass),  which  may 
be  regarded  as  one  of  the  masterpieces  of 
modern  times.  In  his  "  Song  of  Destiny," 
he  also  showed  his  power  in  union  of  chorus 
and  orchestra.  Less  successful  was  the 
"Song  of  Triumph,"  for  in  this  partisan 
work  he  celebrates  the  victory  of  Germany 
over  France,  and  the  highest  forms  of  art 
are  never  found  in  such  sectional  music. 
In  his  symphonies  Brahms  seems  to  have 


Johannes  Brahms.  259 

been  the  only  composer  who  was  able  to 
give  works  of  long  breath  such  as  Beethoven 
had  achieved ;  he  builds  in  the  largest  pro- 
portions without  stumbling  or  stammering ; 
he  was  one  of  the  very  few  who  could  attain 
vastness  without  straining.  It  was  probably 
this  ease  in  dealing  with  large  proportions 
that  Billow  had  in  mind  when  he  spoke  of 
the  greatest  music  being  summed  up  in  "  the 
three  Bs,  —  Bach,  Beethoven,  and  Brahms  !  " 

Brahms  had  no  theories  to  promulgate  , 
he  gave  forth  his  music  and  then  let  it 
stand  for  itself.  He  achieved  success  in 
every  department  of  composition,  symphony, 
overture,  sonata,  song,  choral  work,  chamber 
music,  concerto,  etc.,  etc.  He  was  the 
greatest  leader  in  the  classical  advance  of 
our  time ;  he  was  the  most  practised,  the 
most  thoughtful  and  learned  composer  of 
our  epoch. 

Whether  we  enjoy  Brahms  or  not,  and 
there  are  many  who  do  not  grasp  his  sub- 


260    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

tility  of  treatment,  we  dare  not  turn  aside 
from  his  works  with  sneers  such  as  those 
which  were  pointed  against  Beethoven  by 
the  critics  quoted  at  the  beginning  of  this 
chapter ;  we  must  earnestly  study  what  he 
has  to  tell  us.  No  man  who  has  studied 
deeply,  and  who  'is  entirely  in  earnest,  is 
unworthy  of  respectful  hearing.  If  one  can 
cultivate  a  real  appreciation  of  this  com- 
poser's work  (we  may  acknowledge  that 
there  is  some  hypocrisy  and  pseudo-appre- 
ciation in  the  modern  concert-room),  one  is 
sure  of  having  conquered  something  of  the 
intellectual  side  of  music.  Nor  is  the  emo- 
tional side  entirely  absent,  although  one  may 
admit  that  it  is  not  in  such  equipose  with 
the  intellectual  as  was  the  case  with  Beetho- 
ven. Much  more  than  Wagner's,  the  music 
of  Brahms  is  the  "Music  of  the  Future," 
for  it  requires  much  study  and  pondering; 
it  does  not  always  charm  at  a  single  hear- 
ing ;  posterity  will  do  more  unanimous 


Johannes  Bra  Jims.  261 

homage  than  the  present  to  the  Browning 
of  Music. 

Brahms' s  personal  character  was  not  un- 
like that  of  Beethoven ;  he  was  arbitrary  in 
musical  matters,  rough  in  his  ways,  furiously 
severe  with  any  who  trifled  with  music. 

The  fatal  nature  of  his  final  disease, 
cancer  of  the  liver,  was  well  known  to  the 
physicians  and  to  a  few  intimate  friends 
some  time  before  his  death,  but  the  secret 
was  so  faithfully  guarded  that  the  composer 
knew  nothing  of  it,  and  worked  on  calmly 
until  very  near  his  end.  This,  however,  re- 
sulted in  his  leaving  no  legal  will  (for  not 
all  composers  die  paupers),  and  it  is  dubious 
if  the  legacies  intended  by  the  composer,  to 
aid  indigent  musicians,  will  ever  be  carried 
out.  But  his  richest  legacy  to  the  world, 
his  lofty  compositions,  requires  no  testament 
to  make  it  effective. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

GIUSEPPE    VERDI. 

THERE  is  probably  no  single  biography  in 
music  which  shows  the  change  that  has 
taken  place  in  operatic  composition  in  our 
time  so  graphically  as  that  of  Giuseppe 
Verdi.  He  began  his  work  on  the  lines 
of  Rossini  and  Donizetti,  he  culminated  it 
on  the  dramatic  principles  of  Gluck.  He 
emphatically  denied  that  he  had  in  any 
degree  followed  Wagner,  yet  it  was  prob- 
ably the  example  of  Wagner  which  caused 
him  to  turn  from  the  silliest  librettos  to 
poetic  subjects  in  his  operas,  from  catchy 
melodies  of  the  whistling  order  to  contin- 
uous harmonies  and  dramatic  phrases,  from 
262 


GIUSEPPE    VERDI. 


Giuseppe  Verdi.  263 

meaningless  bravura  to  earnest  portrayal  of 
sentiment. 

Verdi  was  born  October  10,  1813  (the 
same  year  that  witnessed  the  advent  of 
Wagner  into  the  world),  at  the  little  hamlet 
of  Roncole.  He  was,  like  Haydn,  of  the 
humblest  extraction,  his  birthplace  being  not 
much  more  than  a  hovel,  a  little  country 
shop  and  inn  of  the  most  unpretentious  kind. 

That  he  had  an  early  love  for  music  is 
proven  by  the  fact  that  his  father  bought 
him  a  spinet  when  the  boy  was  seven  years 
old,  and  still  further  by  the  fact  that  this 
spinet  was  repaired  gratis  by  a  tuner  named 
Cavaletti,  who  was  so  delighted  by  the  lad's 
abilities  upon  the  instrument  that  he  offered 
him  this  early  homage.  At  the  age  of  ten 
the  boy  became  organist  of  the  little  church 
at  Roncole,  not  a  very  important  post,  as  the 
salary  from  the  second  year  only  amounted 
to  about  forty  lire  —  about  eight  dollars  — 
annually. 


264    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

Because  of  his  gifts  the  boy  drifted 
naturally  to  the  neighboring  town  of  Bus- 
seto,  three  miles  away.  In  Busseto  he 
found  a  devoted  friend  in  Antonio  Barezzi. 

Barezzi  was  a  man  of  considerable  prom- 
inence through  all  the  province,  a  distiller, 
and  a  merchant  of  considerable  means ;  he 
was  also  a  lover  of  music,  and  made  many 
artists  welcome  in  his  hospitable  mansion. 
He  took  Verdi  into  his  service,  and  also 
gave  him  opportunities  to  develop  the  genius 
which  he  recognized  in  the  peasant  boy. 
Verdi  had  a  chance  to  attend  the  rehearsals 
of  the  Philharmonic  Society,  which  took 
place  in  Barezzi's  house ;  finally  the  atten- 
tion of  the  leader  of  the  society,  who  was 
also  organist  of  the  cathedral  at  Busseto, 
a  good  musician  named  Provesi,  was  drawn 
to  the  lad,  and  eventually  Verdi  became  his 
pupil,  continuing  with  the  Busseto  master 
until  his  sixteenth  year. 

At  this  time  Barezzi  obtained  a  grant  of 


Giuseppe  Verdi.  265 

six  hundred  lire  per  annum  for  two  years  for 
the  lad  who  had  already  shown  strong  ten- 
dencies towards  composition.  This  grant  was 
made  by  an  institution  with  an  especial  fund 
for  poor  musicians  ;  to  this  slim  annual  in- 
come Barezzi  added  a  good  sum  for  tuition 
and  sent  Verdi  off  to  the  musical  centre  of 
Italy  —  Milan. 

Now  followed  an  astonishing  blow  :  Fran- 
cesco Easily  refused  to  receive  him  in  the 
Milan  Conservatory  on  the  ground  that  he 
lacked  musical  talent  !  With  Verdi  rejected 
from  the  Milan  Conservatory,  and  Liszt  and 
Rubinstein  turned  away  from  the  Paris  Con- 
servatoire, one  may  consider  conservatories  as 
often  too  conservative.  After  this  rebuff 
Verdi  went  to  Lavigna  in  Milan,  who  became 
his  first  real  instructor  in  the  intricacies  of 
composition.  There  are  many  anecdotes, 
probably  false,  regarding  the  phenomenal 
ability  which  the  young  Verdi  displayed  in 
counterpoint  at  this  time,  one  authority 


266     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

going  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  young  man 
improvised  a  double  canon  on  a  theme  given 
him  by  Lavigna  at  his  first  visit  to  that 
teacher.  When  it  is  borne  in  mind  that  even 
in  his  great  Requiem  Verdi  evaded  sustained 
contrapuntal  work,  and  that  the  finale  of 
"  Falstaff  "  is  the  greatest  height  in  counter- 
point that  he  ever  attained,  such  biographical 
fictions  may  be  dismissed  with  short  shrift. 
But  that  Verdi  soon  began  to  write  boldly  is 
incontestable.  Before  his  public  career  had 
fairly  begun  Barezzi  gave  Verdi  a  proof  of 
his  friendship  by  allowing  the  penniless 
youth  to  wed  his  daughter.  Verdi  was  at 
this  time  twenty-two  years  of  age.  He  very 
soon  set  out  for  Milan  again,  and  here  he  at 
once  made  another  warm  friend  in  Merelli, 
the  manager  of  La  Scala,  the  great  opera 
house  of  the  city. 

Merelli  produced  Verdi's  first  opera, 
"  Oberto  di  San  Bonifacio,"  at  La  Scala,  No- 
vember 17,  1839.  It  wiH  be  seen  that  Verdi 


Giuseppe  Verdi.  267 

was  not  a  precocity  in  composition,  for  at 
the  time  that  his  first  opera  was  completed 
he  was  twenty-six  years  old.  The  opera  was 
successful  and  Merelli  entered  into  a  con- 
tract with  Verdi  for  further  works.  The 
next  opera  was  a  comic  one,  "  Un  Giorno 
di  Regno,"  and  never  was  a  comic  opera 
written  under  such  mournful  and  tragic 
circumstances :  the  composer's  entire  fam- 
ily, wife,  son,  and  daughter,  died  within  a 
few  days  of  each  other.  The  comic  opera 
was  produced  and  made  an  absolute  failure ; 
not  until  more  than  a  half  century  later  did 
Verdi  attempt  another  in  his  "  Falstaff." 

In  these  dark  days  Merelli  stood  by  Verdi 
grandly.  He  was  rewarded  for  his  loyalty,  for 
the  next  opera  which  Verdi  gave  to  him  was 
a  tremendous  popular  success  ;  it  was  "  Na- 
bucco,"  performed  March  9,  1842,  and  with 
this  opera  Verdi's  actual  public  career  com- 
menced. After  this  success  followed  suc- 
cess. The  soprano  who  helped  the  success 


268     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

of  "  Nabucco,"  Giuseppina  Strepponi,  after- 
wards became  Verdi's  second  wife.  She  died 
in  1898. 

After  his  next  opera  —  "I  Lombardi"  — 
Verdi  had  Italy  secure.  He  became  its  most 
popular  composer.  At  this  time,  however, 
he  was  content  to  win  his  public  by  any  and 
all  means,  a  la  Meyerbeer  ;  his  librettos  were 
produced  by  a  literary  hack,  a  veritable  slave 
to  Verdi,  named  Solera,  and  Solera's  suc- 
cessor to  the  post  of  Verdi's  literary  pur- 
veyor was  kept  in  the  same  debased  condition. 
Verdi  was,  at  this  time,  high  tempered,  coarse 
and  uneducated,  and  regarded  his  operatic 
books  merely  as  pegs  whereon  to  hang  his 
melodies ;  the  more  honor  to  him  that  he 
finally  saw  the  error  of  this  mesalliance  of 
poetry  and  music,  and  in  his  later  operas 
called  true  poets  to  his  aid. 

To  illustrate  the  carelessness  he  displayed 
regarding  his  plots  it  may  be  stated  that,  when 
he  wrote  "  Un  Ballo  in  Maschera  "  for  Naples, 


Giuseppe  Verdi.  269 

the  police  forbade  the  performance,  since  a 
king  was  assassinated  in  the  ball  scene,  which 
might  be  an  incital  to  the  Neapolitans  to  go 
and  do  likewise ;  Verdi  nonchalantly  com- 
manded his  librettist  to  change  the  king 
into  the  Duke  of  Mantua,  which  was  done. 
The  police  were  still  dissatisfied,  whereupon 
Verdi  caused  his  poetaster  to  change  the 
whole  affair  to  America ;  eventually  it  was 
the  "  Governor  of  Boston  "  ( !  ! )  who  was 
murdered,  at  a  masked  ball,  probably  given 
by  the  Puritans  in  the  old  Province  House ! 
When  Mario,  the  handsome  tenor,  found  the 
Puritan  garb  too  plain  to  display  his  charms, 
Verdi  said,  "  Dress  it  as  you  please,"  where- 
fore the  Governor  of  Calvinistic  Boston 
danced  his  sprightliest  in  the  full  costume 
of  a  Spanish  cavalier !  If  one  contrasts  this 
with  the  Wagnerian  strivings  after  dramatic 
unity,  the  width  of  the  gulf  between  the 
schools  will  be  appreciated. 

Verdi  was  fortunate  at  this  time  in  curry- 


270    Great  Composers  and  Tfteir  Work. 

ing  political  favor  with  the  young  Italian 
patriots.  In  the  Austrian  provinces  of  Italy 
it  was  treason  for  advocates  of  United  Italy 
to  shout  for  Victor  Emmanuel,  but  in  a  short 
time  all  these  lovers  of  liberty  were  crying, 
"  Viva  Verdi !  "  The  key  to  this  puzzle  is  to 
be  found  in  the  separate  letters  of  the  com- 
poser's name.  "  Viva  Verdi "  really  meant 
"Viva  Vittore  Emmanuele,  Re  D'ltalia!" 

Verdi,  in  this  early  period,  tried  his  hand 
at  setting  Shakespeare  to  music,  but  in  a 
very  different  manner  from  the  later  set- 
tings, when  in  "Othello"  and  "Falstaff" 
he  drew  the  best  Italian  Shakesperian, 
Boito,  to  his  aid.  Imagine  Macduff  singing 
a  liberty  aria,  with  such  words  as,  — 

"  Our  country  forsaken 
Our  tears  should  awaken, 
'Gainst  tyrants'  oppression 
Our  spirits  shall  rise." 

The  bard  of  Avon  was  unrecognizable, 
but  the  audience  easily  recognized  the  patri- 


Giuseppe  Verdi.  271 

otic  sentiment,  and  joined  so  vociferously  in 
the  chorus  that  the  police  soon  took  a  hand 
in  the  proceedings. 

In  1849  Verdi  seemed  to  enter  upon  a 
new  period  of  growth.  Such  operas  as 
"  La  Traviata "  or  "  Rigoletto "  may  be 
classed  as  a  second  period  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  composer.  The  orchestra 
begins  to  have  more  significance  than  a 
mere  accompaniment,  and,  occasionally,  one 
finds  touches  of  high  dramatic  power.  The 
quartette  in  "  Rigoletto,"  for  example,  can 
be  judged  by  the  highest  standards  of  dra- 
matic art,  and  it  will  not  be  found  wanting. 
The  temptation  in  Verdi's  path  may  be 
clearly  shown  by  the  statement  that  the 
Italian  public  cared  less  for  this  great  num- 
ber than  for  the  vapid  tenor  solo,  "  La  Donna 
e  Mobile,"  and  Verdi  knew  perfectly  well 
beforehand  that  this  would  be  the  case, 
keeping  the  melody  profoundly  secret  from 
everybody  but  the  tenor,  and  playing  it  as 


272     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

his  trump  card  at  the  performance.  "  La 
Traviata "  began  with  a  semi-failure  from 
a  physical  cause.  It  may  be  borne  in  mind 
that  here  the  heroine  (actually  Dumas's 
"  Camille ")  dies  of  consumption.  It  is 
rather  difficult  to  obtain  an  opera  singer  who 
looks  near  to  death  from  this  cause.  Verdi 
had  proceeded  with  his  usual  carelessness  in 
the  matter,  and  when  the  doctor,  in  the  last 
act,  said  of  the  prima  donna  of  two  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds,  "  In  a  few  short  hours  she 
will  be  dead  of  consumption !  "  the  house 
began  to  reecho  to  shouts  of  laughter,  and 
the  performance  ended  in  hilarity. 

Verdi  was,  however,  now  world-famous; 
operas  for  Paris,  for  Russia,  for  Egypt,  were 
ordered  in  quick  succession.  And  now  the 
composer  began  to  show  the  stamina  that 
was  in  him  ;  he  drew  towards  a  loftier,  more 
truly  dramatic  style  of  expression.  This 
third  period  shows  its  dawn  in  "  Don  Car- 
los," but  it  shines  forth  in  its  full  glory  in 


Giuseppe  Verdi.  273 

"Aida,"  written  at  the  command  of  the 
Khedive  of  Egypt  for  the  opening  of  the 
Grand  Opera  House  at  Cairo,  December 
24,  1871.  Here  we  find  a  true  wedding  of 
text  and  tones,  sustained  dramatic  power, 
noble  orchestration,  in  short  everything  that 
distinguishes  the  great  Verdi  of  the  third 
period  from  the  paltry  Verdi  of  his  first 
period.  In  1874  the  Manzoni  Requiem 
proved  that  there  was  to  be  no  recession, 
for  it  is  a  work  full  of  power  and  beauty. 

In  1887  the  septuagenarian  brought  forth 
his  greatest  work,  this  time  a  Shakesperian 
setting  that  intensified  instead  of  perverted 
the  great  poet.  The  librettist,  Arrigo 
Boito,  must  share  in  this  triumph,  for  he 
gave  to  Verdi  a  libretto  that  awakens  enthu- 
siasm. At  more  than  eighty  years  of  age 
the  composer,  still  showing  no  signs  of 
decay,  brought  forth  his  second  comic 
opera,  "  Falstaff,"  a  fine  work,  yet  not  to  be 
ranked  with  "  Othello  "  or  "  Aida  "  in  power. 


274    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

In  "Falstaff"  and  "Othello"  Verdi  has 
left  the  domain  of  pretty  melody  altogether ; 
the  continuity  of  the  modern  school  is  in 
these  two  operas,  and  the  music  is  dramatic 
rather  than  merely  tuneful.  "  Falstaff  "  was 
his  last  opera  ;  he  died,  soon  after  this  tri- 
umph of  his  old  age,  at  Milan,  Jan.  27,  1901. 

One  must  pay  homage  to  Verdi  for 
changing  of  his  own  accord  from  a  meretri- 
cious style  to  an  earnest  one.  This  change 
has  been  acknowledged  by  even  the  severest 
critics.  Von  Biilow,  who  began  by  despising 
Verdi,  ended'  by  honoring  him,  and  all  Ger- 
many has  followed  his  example.  Italy  bows 
to  Verdi  as  the  founder  of  a  newer  and 
purer  school  of  Italian  opera ;  thus  Verdi 
has  become  a  great  leader  in  the  modern 
musical  advance;  beginning  by  writing 
down  to  his  public,  he  ended  by  drawing  his 
public  upward  to  a  higher  domain  of  art, 
and  by  arresting  the  decay  which  seemed  to 
have  settled  like  a  blight  upon  the  opera  in 
Italy. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

OTHER  INFLUENCES  IN  MODERN  MUSIC. 
HECTOR  BERLIOZ. 

WE  have  already  reviewed  the  line  of 
operatic  composers  in  France,  but  it  is  due 
to  that  country  to  speak  of  the  orchestral 
development  which  has  been  a  growth  of 
its  most  modern  epoch.  This  orchestral 
school  which  has  brought  forth  such  men 
as  Saint  Sae'ns,  Massenet,  Franck  (who  has 
done  good  service  in  other  directions  as 
well),  Bizet,  and  many  others,  had  its  real 
beginning  in  the  orchestral  scores  of  Ber- 
lioz. Although  Berlioz  has  composed  opera, 
oratorio,  cantata,  and  other  choral  works,  it 
is  by  his  wonderful  skill  and  brilliancy  in 
scoring  that  he  has  influenced  not  only  the 
275 


276     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

orchestral  music  of  France,  but  of  the  entire 
world. 

Hector  Berlioz  was  born  at  C6te  St. 
Andre,  December  n,  1803.  He  was  the 
son  of  a  physician  who  was  an  opium  eater, 
and  much  that  was  unbalanced  and  morbid 
in  the  son  may  be  traced  to  this  vice  of  the 
parent.  Amid  many  trials  and  privations  he 
studied  at  the  Paris  Conservatoire,  not  the 
least  of  these  trials  being  the  fixed  enmity 
of  Cherubini,  whose  classical  style  was 
entirely  antagonistic  to  the  fierce  and  dra- 
matic school  of  the  young  composer.  He 
was  deemed  unfit  even  to  compete  for  the 
Prix  de  Rome,  and  this  denial  caused  the 
father  to  call  him  back  from  Paris  to  his 
country  home.  Such  deep  dejection  followed 
the  return,  however,  that  the  anxious  father 
permitted  his  second  departure  for  Paris  and 
a  musical  career. 

In  Paris  he  saw  a  beautiful  Irish  actress, 
a  Miss  Harriet  Smithson,  who  was  perform 


Other  Influences  in  Modern  Mttsic.    277 

ing  Shakespearian  plays  in  the  French  me- 
tropolis, and  at  once  fell  in  love  with  her. 
It  was  a  long  time  before  the  poverty-stricken 
young  composer  could  bring  himself  to  the 
notice  of  the  successful  actress,  but  he  event- 
ually succeeded.  The  great  "  Symphonic 
Fantastique"  was  the  love-letter  which 
eventually  caused  her  to  understand  the 
passion  that  she  had  inspired.  The  "  Romeo 
and  Juliet "  symphony  is  another  outcome 
of  the  episode.  The  pair  were  eventually 
married ;  it  is  a  pity  that  one  cannot  add, 
"They  lived  happily  ever  afterwards,"  but 
the  truth  must  be  told  that  it  was  a  very 
unhappy  union.  The  actress  met  with  an 
accident  that  caused  her  to  withdraw  from 
the  stage,  she  was  utterly  unable  to  become 
a  helpmate  to  the  struggling  composer,  she 
eventually  took  to  drink,  and  a  separation 
ensued.  Berlioz  subsequently  married  a 
Mile.  Recio,  a  singer  with  a  small  voice 
and  a  large  conceit,  and  outlived  her,  the 


278    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

second  mother-in-law  taking  care  of  him  after 
her  daughter's  death.  Berlioz  had  one  son, 
Louis,  by  his  first  marriage,  who  died  in 
young  manhood. 

Berlioz  was  a  man  who  was  not  daunted 
by  obstacles ;  he  was  a  born  fighter,  as  it  is 
necessary  for  a  pioneer  and  reformer  to  be. 
After  the  denial  of  the  right  to  compete  for 
the  great  prize  of  the  Institute,  mentioned 
above,  he  entered  the  lists  four  times  more, 
and  finally  won  the  coveted  reward. 

His  "Symphonic  Fantastique"  not  only 
won  him  his  wife,  but  a  strange  pecuniary 
reward  as  well.  The  work  was  given  under 
the  direction  of  the  composer  in  Paris,  when, 
at  the  close  of  the  performance,  a  weird- 
looking  man  sprang  upon  the  platform,  kissed 
the  composer's  hand,  and  rushed  away.  The 
next  day  there  came  a  letter  from  the  un- 
known, who  proved  to  be  the  great  Paganini, 
the  king  of  all  violinists,  enclosing  20,000 
francs  as  a  token  of  his  appreciation  of  the 


Other.  Influences  in  Modern  Music.    279 

composer's  merit.  Paganini  was  such  an 
arrant  miser  during  all  his  life  that  some 
French  biographers  believe  that  he  was  only 
the  agent  of  some  wealthy  admirer  of  Berlioz 
who  desired  to  keep  himself  in  the  back- 
ground, but  one  can  well  believe  that  this 
morbid  symphony  would  pull  at  the  heart- 
strings of  the  dark  and  sinister  Paganini. 

Berlioz  was  denounced  by  all  the  musical 
critics  of  his  day  in  Paris ;  he  himself  was  a 
musical  critic  and  reviewer,  and  this  added 
fuel  to  the  flame,  for  brotherly  love  is  very 
seldom  found  among  reviewers  in  the  musi- 
cal field.  He  once  took  a  very  ingenious 
revenge  upon  his  antagonistic  reviewers.  In 
his  delvings  among  old  libraries  he  came 
across  an  old  work,  probably  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  "L'Enfance  du  Christ,"  by 
an  unknown  composer,  —  Pere  Ducre\  He 
caused  this  to  be  performed ;  all  the  critics 
of  Paris  burst  forth  in  eulogy  of  the  compo- 
sition, and  some  ventured  to  tell  Berlioz  that 


280    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

he  had  better  leave  his  sensationalism,  and 
study  the  pages  of  this  same  Pere  Ducre"  ! 
Then  came  the  bombshell !  Berlioz  suddenly 
retorted  with  the  statement  that  there  was 
no  Pere  Ducre1 !  He  proved  that  he  himself 
had  written  the  work  in  question,  and  had 
turned  the  tables  upon  his  adversaries  by  one 
of  the  neatest  of  practical  jokes !  They  did 
not  cherish  him  any  the  more  because  of  this. 
But  there  was  and  is  some  truth  in  the 
attacks  made  upon  Berlioz ;  he  is  morbid 
and  sensational  in  most  of  his  work ;  he  may 
be  called  the  Edgar  Allen  Poe  of  Music, 
yet  his  management  of  the  orchestra  was 
marvellous,  and  he  may  be  regarded  as  the 
first  Frenchman  who  thoroughly  developed 
orchestral  resources.  Sometimes  his  effects 
were  in  the  nature  of  experiments,  and  often 
his  music  was  affectedly  intricate.  Wagner 
said  of  him,  "  He  ciphers  with  notes ; " 
but  he  was  none  the  less  the  pioneer  of  a 
new  school. 


Other  Influences  in  Modern  Music,    281 

His  works  were  in  almost  every  branch 
of  composition.  Probably  the  great  effort 
of  his  life  was  made  in  an  opera  —  "  Les 
Troyens "  —  which  has  never  had  a  fair 
hearing,  the  performances  of  Wagner's 
"  Tannhauser "  in  Paris,  already  described, 
preventing  its  intended  launching.  His 
Requiem  may  be  regarded  as  the  most 
ambitious  score  (in  number  of  parts  and 
instruments  employed)  in  existence.  His 
"Damnation  of  Faust"  is  a  work  full  of 
beauty  and  diablerie  in  about  equal  propor- 
tions. His  symphonies  are  not  in  the 
accustomed  form,  but  are  marvels  of  or- 
chestration. It  is  on  the  orchestral  side 
that  Berlioz  wins  the  admiration  of  the 
critic,  he  is  the  tone-colorist  par  excellence, 
the  Titian  of  music.  He  has  used  pro- 
gramme music  in  symphony  more  than  any 
other  composer.  He  won  many  honors  in 
Germany,  Austria,  and  Russia,  but  the 
French  were  too  new  to  orchestral  devices 


282     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

to  understand    their  compatriot  during  his 
lifetime.     Berlioz  died  March  8,   1869. 

ROBERT    FRANZ. 

There  could  be  no  wider  contrast  in  musi- 
cal biography  than  that  afforded  by  the  life 
of  Franz  as  against  such  a  career  as  the  one 
just  described ;  the  one  all  frenzied  and  sen- 
sational, the  other  calm  and  serene ;  the  one 
pressing  forward  towards  new  fields,  the 
other  resting  tranquilly  upon  the  old  mas- 
ters. In  one  respect  the  art  career  of  Franz 
may  be  compared  with  that  of  Chopin,  —  he 
achieved  all  his  fame  in  a  single  field  of 
composition.  Chopin's  renown  rests  wholly 
upon  his  piano  compositions  ;  Franz's  fame 
is  built  entirely  upon  his  songs.  Franz  was 
the  legitimate  successor  of  Schubert  and 
Schumann  in  the  field  of  lieder.  His  nature 
was  so  retiring,  his  life  so  quiet,  his  works 
in  such  a  small  form,  that  the  world  does 
not  even  now  comprehend  what  a  master 


Other  Influences  in  Modern  Music.    283 

Robert  Franz  was.  He  was  born  June  28, 
1815,  at  Halle,  the  German  university  town, 
a  pious  and  quiet  old  city  which  possibly 
moulded  the  quiet  nature  of  the  musician. 
He  appreciated  music  at  two  years  of  age, 
for  he  has  assured  the  author  of  his  recol- 
lecting a  chorale  which  he  heard  in  his 
nurse's  arms.  The  music  in  the  family  was 
of  the  religious  type,  the  father  singing 
chorales  every  evening,  to  the  great  delight 
of  his  musical  son.  The  boy  was  threatened 
with  a  flogging  at  school  for  constantly  im- 
provising an  alto  part  to  the  melodies  which 
the  pupils  sang  in  unison,  the  teacher  not 
comprehending  any  deviation  from  the 
printed  copy. 

Franz  picked  up  sufficient  organ-playing 
in  his  home  to  attempt  an  occasional  chorale 
accompaniment  in  church,  and,  as  a  boy, 
used  to  run  from  church  to  church  in  Halle 
in  the  hope  of  substituting,  gratis,  for  the 
organist,  during  the  congregational  singing. 


284     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work, 

His  father  was  opposed  to  his  taking  up  a 
musical  career,  but  when  the  crucial  time 
arrived  his  mother  stood  his  staunch  friend, 
and  at  twenty  he  left  Halle  for  Dessau, 
w^here  he  studied  under  Schneider.  He 
was  nurtured  in  the  good  old  school  of 
the  Chorales,  of  Bach,  and  of  the  classical 
masters.  He  returned  to  Halle  a  mosl 
impractical  youth,  seemingly  unable  to  make 
his  way  in  any  path,  not  technically  able 
to  appear  as  a  public  performer,  spend 
ing  nights  and  days  in  the  study  of  the 
old  Italian  and  German  composers  and 
the  works  of  Schubert,  whom  he  loved 
dearly. 

Six  years  of  aimless  waiting  ensued,  dur- 
ing which  Franz  composed  song  after  song 
only  to  lock  each  one  up  in  his  desk  after 
completion.  At  last,  in  1843,  ne  deter- 
mined to  publish  something.  Twelve  songs 
were  selected  from  his  pile  of  manuscripts. 
Through  Schumann  these  found  an  imme- 


Other  Influences  in  Modern  Music.    285 

diate  recognition  and  a  publisher.  Never 
was  such  an  Opus  I  ;  Liszt,  Schumann,  and 
other  critics  sang  the  praises  of  the  new 
sunburst  royally. 

A  position  came  in  the  train  of  these 
Lieder,  and  Franz  was  made  director  of  the 
Sing-Akademie  of  his  town.  Here  he  lived 
in  absolute  retirement  all  his  days.  He 
loved  to  fill  out  the  skeleton  scores  of  the 
old  masters  with  the  necessary  additional 
accompaniments,  a  labor  of  self-abnegation 
for  which  he  has  not  received  due  credit, 
some  reviewers  even  blaming  the  modest 
master  with  filling  in  appropriate  counter- 
point where  the  sparsely  orchestrated  works 
of  Bach  and  Handel  required  it. 

Franz  married  a  musical  wife,  Marie 
Hinrichs,  who  also  has  given  forth  some 
worthy  compositions.  Gradually  poverty 
settled  down  upon  the  modest  household, 
and  at  this  juncture  an  alarming  deafness 
came  upon  the  composer  so  that  he  was 


286    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

obliged  to  give  up  his  directorship ;  the 
wolf  was  at  the  door.  Fortunately  in  this 
case  we  are  spared  the  necessity  of  telling 
a  tale  of  starvation  and  pauperism,  such  as 
has  been  narrated  of  more  than  one  master 
in  these  pages;  Liszt  came  to  the  rescue. 
In  1868  "Franz  Concerts"  were  given  in 
all  the  great  cities  of  the  world,  even  Boston 
sending  a  large  sum  to  the  fund  which 
resulted.  The  composer  was  lifted  above 
all  reach  of  poverty,  and  was  placed  per- 
manently in  comfortable  circumstances. 

He  went  on  pouring  forth  Lieder  to  the 
end  of  his  days.  To  a  letter  in  which  the 
author  ventured  to  complain  that  one  of 
the  greatest  modern  contrapuntists  should 
only  leave  small  works  behind  him,  Franz 
replied  that  he  felt  that  there  was  no  room 
in  the  large  forms  after  Beethoven. 

He  remained  a  musical  Meissonier  to  his 
death.  But  his  songs  are  models  of  what 
this  form  should  be.  In  a  letter  to  the 


Other  Influences  in  Modern  Music.    287 

author,    regarding    these,    Franz   wrote    (in 
1 889)  the  following  remarkable  words  : 

"  There  is,  I  am  afraid,  a  subtler  comprehension 
of  music  necessary  than  that  possessed  by  the 
average,  to  discover  the  different  phases  of  my 
musical  expression.  . 

"  One  of  the  most  characteristic  points  in  the 
matter  is  that  I  do  not  make  music  to  the  text 
chosen,  but  allow  the  music  to  develop  itself  from 
the  words.  Two  verses  of  a  Heine  poem  run : 

" '  If  your  eyes  are  keen  and  bright 
And  upon  my  songs  you  ponder, 
You  will  see  a  fair,  young  maid 
Lightly  through  the  verses  wander. 

" '  If  your  ears  are  very  sharp 

You  will  hear  her  sweet  voice  calling, 
And  her  laughing,  sighing,  singing, 
Soon  shall  be  your  heart  enthralling.' 

"  Instinctively  I  gave  my  adhesion  to  this  guidance 
of  Heine,  and  was  led  to  it  the  more  by  the  convic- 
tion that  there  are  more  close  and  secret  connec- 
tions existing  between  poetry  and  music  than  the 
narrow  mind  comprehends.  « Every  truly  lyrical 
poem  holds  latent  within  itself  its  own  melody. ' " 


288    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 
In  a  later  letter  he  says  : 

"  That  you  do  justice  to  the  power  of  the  Lied 
gives  me  great  pleasure.  Until  now  many  have 
looked  upon  this  form  with  a  compassionate  shrug 
of  the  shoulders,  and  yet  there  rests  upon  it  one 
of  the  chief  factors  of  music.  As  regards  myself, 
I  do  not  for  a  moment  regret  that  I  have  followed 
this  command  of  my  nature  exclusively,  and  have 
brought  the  form  into  honor,  along  with  my  prede- 
cessors. Music  began  with  the  lyric,  and  ends 
with  it,  a  process  of  development  that  is  true  of 
poetry  also." 

In  1891  there  comes  a  letter  that  is  full 
of  premonition.  Franz  had  promised  an  au- 
tobiography, but  writes : 

"  I  cannot  do  it ;  head  and  hand  are  in  too 
pitiable  a  condition  for  me  to  attempt  anything  con- 
nected with  a  personal  description." 

Franz  had  at  this  time  written  about 
three  hundred  songs,  each  a  gem  in  its  way, 
songs  that  find  their  equals  only  in  the 
works  of  Schubert  or  of  Schumann. 

The  world  will  yet  come  to  appreciate  the 


Other  Influences  in  Modern  Music,    289 

fact  that  Robert  Franz  was  a  genius,  one  of 
the  great  triumvirate  of  Lie  ^-composers. 

Soon  after  the  last  letter,  October  24,  1 892, 
there  came  the  end ;  but  if  goodness  of  life 
and  truth  to  an  ideal,  if  self-abnegation  and 
lofty  purpose  through  a  long  career  mean 
anything,  the  end  was  but  the  beginning. 

MODERN    SCHOOLS    OF    COMPOSITION. 

There  are  many  composers  of  the  present 
era  and  of  the  recent  past,  who,  while  falling 
short  of  the  rank  of  absolute  genius,  are  yet 
exerting  an  influence  upon  the  direction  of 
the  modern  school  of  music.  It  would  be 
impossible  to  mention  each  of  these  in  de- 
tail, yet  a  short  account  of  the  schools  of  na- 
tional music  which  they  furthered  may  best 
conclude  our  sketches  of  musical  matters. 

In  Bohemia,  where,  after  the  fearful  rav- 
ages of  the  thirty  years'  war,  art  lay  pros- 
trate, a  musical  pioneer  named  Smetana 
(born  1824,  died,  insane,  in  1884)  arose,  and 


290    Great  Composers  and  Then  Work. 

began  a  school  of  composition  that  was  per- 
meated with  the  true  spirit  of  his  native 
land.  He  had  a  pupil  who  carried  this 
national  idea  still  further;  this  was  Antonin 
Dvorak,  born  September  8,  1841.  Like  his 
teacher,  Smetana,  Dvorak  built  most  of  his 
music  upon  the  rock  of  folk-song.  This 
composer  became  an  important  factor  in  the 
development  of  American  music,  not  only  by 
using  some  of  our  Southern  folk-themes  in 
symphony  and  in  chamber  music,  but  by 
teaching  composition  in  this  country  for 
some  time.  His  chief  works  are  a  "  Stabat 
Mater,"  a  Requiem,  a  set  of  symphonies,  and 
the  "  Spectre's  Bride."  He  died  at  Prague, 
May  i,  1904. 

In  Russia  an  important  school  of  modern 
orchestral  music  has  arisen,  and  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  Russia  of  the  near  future  may 
become  the  leading  country  of  the  world  in 
some  branches  of  music.  Russia  has  a  glo- 
rious wealth  of  folk-music  to  draw  upon,  and 
its  first  great  composer,  Glinka  (1804-1857), 


Other  Influences  in  Modern  Music.    291 

in  his  operas,  "  Life  for  the  Czar "  and 
"  Ruslan  and  Ludmilla,"  proved  what  beauty 
exists  in  the  folk-songs  of  the  land  of  the 
Czar.  But  the  later  composers,  Borodin, 
Cui,  Rimski-Korsakoff,  etc.,  have  turned  to 
the  modern  orchestra  with  avidity,  and  have 
shown  themselves  strongly  influenced  by  the 
style  of  Berlioz,  Liszt,  and  Wagner.  Among 
these  one  figure  stands  preeminent  in  or- 
chestral writing  (his  operas  are  not  yet 
known  in  America)  : 

PETER    ILIITSCH    TSCHAIKOWSKY. 

This  great  composer  was  born  in  1840, 
and  died  in  1894.  He  was  gloriously  na- 
tional in  his  music ;  in  symphony,  in  over- 
ture, in  chamber  music,  in  almost  every 
domain  of  music,  Tschaikowsky  has  shown 
us  what  the  Russian  school  has  to  say  when 
to  the  knowledge  of  Muscovite  melodies  is 
added  the  skill  of  a  great  composer.  Tschai- 
kowsky's  last  great  work  was  the  "  Pathetic 


292     Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

Symphony,"  which  is  a  threnody  of  great 
power.  Its  mournful  character  has  caused 
2he  wretched  musical  sentimentalist  to 
wreathe  a  story  around  its  measures ;  it  is 
stated  by  some  writers  that  Tschaikowsky 
wrote  this  in  anticipation  of  his  own  death, 
and  then  committed  suicide.  There  is  not  a 
word  of  truth  in  this  ;  the  composer  died  of 
ptomaine  poisoning.  During  the  cholera 
season  in  St.  Petersburg,  when  all  the  water 
was  more  or  less  contaminated,  he  ventured 
to  drink  a  glass  of  unfiltered  water,  and  very 
soon  thereafter  was  taken  ill  with  all  the 
symptoms  of  cholera.  There  are  so  many 
details  of  the  last  illness  given  in  the  Rus- 
sian press  that  the  story  of  suicide  is  utterly 
annihilated. 

In  France  Massenet  to-day  shares  with 
Saint  Saens  the  sceptre  of  orchestral  power. 
Yet  Massenet  has  never  risen  to  the  height 
of  his  competitor  in  purely  orchestral  music. 
His  tendency  is  rather  towards  the  operatic 


Otlier  Influences  in  Modern  Music.    293 

vein,  and  in  this,  especially  in  his  "  Manon," 
he  is  the  superior  of  Saint  Sae'ns. 

Even  Italy,  which  has  hitherto  devoted 
itself  almost  exclusively  to  the  vocal  side  of 
music,  is  now  coming  into  the  orchestral 
lines,  and  Sgambati  has  made  the  first 
Italian  efforts  in  the  large  orchestral  forms, 
while  Mascagni  also  shows  an  appreciation 
of  the  power  of  modern  instrumentation. 

Scandinavia  has  an  important  message  to 
give  to  the  world  in  music,  for  the  folk- 
music  of  Norway  and  Sweden  is  scarcely 
less  varied  and  expressive  than  that  of  Rus- 
sia, and  such  composers  as  Grieg,  Svendsen, 
or  Lindblad  have  brought  this  new  flavor 
into  modern  composition  with  great  success. 

England  has  scarcely  shared  in  the  mod- 
ern activity  ;  her  golden  epoch  was  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  The  world  is  constantly 
vaunting  the  Elizabethan  poets  but  has 
done  very  scant  justice  to  the  Elizabethan 
contrapuntists.  The  madrigals  of  Weelkes, 


294    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

Wilbye,  Farrant,  Morley,  the  anthems  which 
were  brought  forth  by  these  and  other  com- 
posers at  this  epoch  and  are  still  the  glory 
of  the  Episcopal  Church,  place  the  England 
of  1550-1625  abreast  of  any  musical  nation 
of  its  time,  even  though  no  Palestrina  or 
Di  Lasso  appeared.  The  musical  genius  of 
England,  Purcell,  appeared  later.  In  the 
present  day  England  presents  an  Irishman 
and  a  semi-German  as  her  chief  composers, 
Dr.  Villiers  Stanford  and  F.  H.  Cowen  be- 
ing her  chief  symphonic  composers,  although 
Macfarren  and  Sullivan  have  achieved  suc- 
cesses in  other  fields  of  composition.  The 
latter,  Sir  Arthur  Sullivan,  when  studying  at 
Leipzig  was  believed  by  his  teachers  to  be 
destined  to  become  England's  greatest  com- 
poser. He  might  indeed  have  become  so 
but  for  the  fact  that  the  comic  opera  muse 
soon  claimed  him,  and  forbade  him  the 
highest  fame  while  filling  his  pocketbook 
beyond  the  usual  lot  of  composers.  No 


Other  Influences  in  Modern  Music.    295 

man  can  serve  two  masters.  Sullivan  has 
fallen  short  of  true  greatness  in  his  grand 
opera,  his  oratorio,  and  his  cantata  work,  but 
he  deserves  the  thanks  of  the  world  for 
elevating  comic  opera  above  the  indelicate 
level  where  the  French  composers  had 
placed  it.  Many  other  composers  of  merit 
might  be  named  in  connection  with  Eng- 
land's recent  musical  history,  —  Mackenzie, 
Parry,  Doctor  Bridge,  Barnby,  and  many 
other  names  might  be  cited  to  show  that 
the  mother  country  is  not  idle  in  art,  and 
a  decidedly  higher  standard  has  been  estab- 
lished than  was  the  case  when  William 
Sterndale  Bennet,  or  Balfe,  or  William 
Vincent  Wallace,  or  Bishop,  ruled  British 
music. 

In  Germany  there  seems  to  be  a  momen- 
tary retrogression  caused  by  an  attempt  to 
out-Wagner  Wagner,  and  while  such  com- 
posers as  Raff  (1822-1882),  Rheinberger, 
and,  in  Austria,  Goldmark,  are  upholding 


296    Great  Composers  and  Their  Work. 

form  and  intelligible  harmony  as  well  as 
melody,  a  misguided  genius,  Richard  Strauss, 
is  leading  his  muse  through  the  brambles 
instead  of  along  the  highroad  of  art,  and 
he,  in  turn,  has  many  imitators  who  have 
not  his  great  orchestral  power ;  thus  music, 
too,  is  beginning  to  have  its  Maeterlincks, 
its  impressionist  school,  and  there  are  not 
wanting  virulent  attacks  on  symphony,  so- 
nata, on  everything  that  has  form  or  sym- 
metrical architecture. 

It  would  be  impossible  in  a  work  of  this 
brief  description  to  do  justice  to  the  musical 
advance  that  has  taken  place  in  America. 
The  wonderful  strides  that  have  been  made 
in  painting  and  in  literature  in  America 
have  been  duplicated  in  music  ;  a  land  which 
a  half  century  ago  had  no  composers  now 
possesses  a  number  of  men  (and  even  a 
few  women)  who  can  do  creditable  work  in 
the  largest  musical  forms.  American  com- 
positions begin  to  take  their  place  upon 


Other  Influences  in  Modern  Music.    297 

European  concert  programmes,  and  the 
highest  standard  is  being  rapidly  attained. 
From  the  study  of  the  past  one  can  in 
some  degree  prophesy  the  future.  After 
becoming  exhausted  in  pursuing  the  Wag- 
ner will-o'-the-wisp,  the  great  composers 
will  return  to  a  more  melodic,  a  more 
symmetrical  basis.  They  will  not  recede 
from  the  wonderful  orchestration  which 
Wagner,  Berlioz,  Richard  Strauss,  and 
others  have  established,  but  they  will  com- 
bine with  it  something  of  the  purer  classi- 
cal school,  so  that,  while  the  composer  of 
the  future  may  possess  the  passion  of  the 
present  school,  he  will  also  combine  with 
it  something  of  the  limpid  purity  and  mel- 
ody of  a  Mozart,  the  figure  treatment  of  a 
Beethoven,  and  the  contrapuntal  ease  of  a 
Bach. 


Printed  by  C.  H.  Siinonils  &  Co.,  Boston,  U.  8.  A. 


INDEX 
OF  GREAT   COMPOSERS. 


Adam  de  la  Hale,  12-16. 
Albrechtsberger,  106. 
Auber,  200,  203,  225. 

Bach,  Carl  Philipp  Emanuel, 

50,  54,  1 53. 
Bach,  John  Christopher,  48- 

49. 
Bach,  John   Sebastian,  46- 

57,  65,  66,  97,  100,   169, 

17°,    I73-J74.    224,    228, 

259,  284,  285,  297. 
Bach,   William   Friedmann, 

50-51- 

Balfe,  295. 

Barnby,  295. 

Bartholdi,  Felix  Mendels- 
sohn. See  Mendelssohn, 
Felix. 

Beer,  Jacob  Laebmann.  See 
Meyerbeer,  Giacomo. 

Beethoven,  Ludwig  van,  74- 
75.  77,  94,  97-125,  127, 
142-146,  149,  153,  155, 
156,  160,  163,  166,  170, 


178,    180,    181,  188,  191, 

195,  202,   215,  218,  219, 

223,224,252-254,256,259 

260,  261,  286,  297. 
Bellini,  214,  225. 
Bennet,  William  Sterndale, 

295. 
Berlioz,    Hector,    181,    202, 

275-282,  291,  297. 
Bishop,  295. 

Bizet,  Georges,  204,  275. 
Boieldieu,  200,  203. 
Borodin,  291. 
Brahms,  Johannes,  127,  143, 

195,  252-261. 
Bridge,  205. 

Bvilow,  161,  247,  259,  274. 
Buxtehude,  59. 

Caccini,  37. 

Carissimi,  46. 

Catel,  200. 

Cavaliere,  Emilio  del,  45. 

Cavalli,  38. 

Cherubini,  181,  201-204, 27& 


299 


300  Index  of  Great  Composers. 


Chopin,  Frederic,  97,  127, 
152-162,  164-165,  1 68, 
282. 

Clementi,  153,  161. 

Cowen,  F.  H.,  294. 

Cui,  291. 

Czerny,  153. 

D'Albert,  161. 

Des  Pres,  Josquin,  19,  24. 

Di  Lasso,   Orlando,   20-23, 

32,  35.  37,  294. 
Donizetti,  214,  236,  262. 
Dufay,  William,  17-18. 
Dunstable,  16-17. 
Dvorak,  Antonin,  241,  290. 

Eisner,  Joseph,  154. 

Farrant,  294. 
Festa,  Costanza,  26. 
Fetis,  200. 
Franck,  275. 

Franz,  Robert,  126,  163, 
282-289. 

Gabrieli,  Andrea,  25. 

Gabrieli,  Giovanni,  25. 

Galileo,  Vincenzo,  37. 

Glinka,  167,  291. 

Gluck,  Christoph  Willibald, 
39-44,  78,  96,  122,  181, 
197,  201,  210-213,  2I5> 

217,     220,     221,     233,    235, 
238,    262. 

Goldmark,  295. 

Gounod,  Charles,  206,  207- 

209,  251. 
Gre"try,  200. 
Grieg,  241,  293. 
Guido  of  Arezzo,  12. 


Halevy,  206. 

Handel,    George    Frederic, 

40,  46-47,  57-65,  66,  1 20, 

135,  169,  181,  285. 
Hassler,  25. 
Haydn,  Franz  Josef,  66-78, 

85,88,  95-96,  98, 105-106, 

120,     l6o,     165,     179,     201, 

223,  262. 
Herold,  206. 
Himmel,  no. 
Hummel,  121. 
Hucbald    of    St.    Amands, 

12. 

Kalkbrenner,  157. 

Keiser,   Reinhardt,    39,   46, 

59- 
Kreutzer,  214. 

Lindblad,  293. 

Liszt,  Franz,  157,  158,  161- 
165,  167,  180,  202,  232, 
241,  246,  247,  253,  255, 
265,  285,  286,  291. 

Lortzing,  214. 

Lully,  Jean  Baptiste,  38, 
198-199. 

Macfarren,  294. 
Mackenzie,  295. 
Marchand,  52. 
Marschner,  214. 
Martini,  Padre,  80. 
Mascagni,  293. 
Massenet,  275,  292-293. 
Mattheson,  58-60,  181. 
Mehul,  200. 
Mendelssohn,     Felix,     1 10, 

!47>    !57>    169-180,    182, 

194,  210. 


Index  of  Great  Composers. 


301 


Meyerbeer,  Giacomo,  204- 
206,  210,  216,  229,  231, 
233,  246,  268. 

Monteverde,  38. 

Morley,  294. 

Moscheles,  153,  161. 

Mozart,  Wolfgang  Ama- 
deus,  66,  78-96,  99,  101, 
112,  120-122,  127,  148, 
150,  155,  160,  165,  179, 
181,  188,  200,  209,  216, 
224,  .297. 

Muris,  Jean  de,  16. 


Ockenheim,       John. 

Ockhegem. 
Ockhegem,  John,  19. 


See 


Paderewski,  161. 
Palestrina,    Giovanni    Pier- 

luigi  da,  26-36,  37,  44,  52, 

228,  294. 
Parry,  295. 
Pergolesi,  38. 
Peri,  37,  45. 

Piccini,  Nicolo,  42-43,  217. 
Porpora,  69-70. 
Praetorius,  25. 
Purcell,  Henry,  38, 197-198, 

204,  294. 

Raff,  295. 

Rameau,  Jean  Philippe,  199, 

200. 

Reissiger,  94. 
Reuter,  George,  67. 
Rheinberger,  295. 
Richter,  200. 
Rimski-Korsakoff,  291. 
Rore,  Cyprian  de,  25. 


Rossini,    Gioacchino,    210- 

214,  236,  262. 
Rubinstein,  Anton,  161,  165, 

166-168,  202,  265. 

Saint  Sae'ns,  Camille,  206, 
209-210,  251,  275,  292- 

293- 

Salieri,  129. 

Sammartini,  39. 

Scarlatti,  Alessandro,  38, 
46,  122. 

Scarlatti,  Domenico,  153. 

Scheidemann,  25. 

Scheldt,  25. 

Schubert,  78,  87,  91-95,  120, 
126-151,  165,  170,  191, 
195,  282,  284,  288. 

Schuetz,  46. 

Schumann,  Robert,  126,  130, 
145-146,  155,  158,  168- 
170,  180-196,  206,  222, 
247,  256-257,  282,  284, 
285,  288. 

Sgambati,  293. 

Smetana.  290. 

Stanford,  Ur.  Villiers,  294. 

Stradella,  46. 

Strauss,  Richard,  296-297. 

Sullivan,  Sir  Arthur,  294- 
295. 

Siissmayer,  92. 

Svendsen,  293. 

Taussig,  161. 

Thomas,  Ambroise,  203, 209. 
Tschaikowsky,  Peter  Iliitsch 
167,  241,  291-292. 

Verdi,  Giuseppe,  238,  25 1; 
262-274. 


302          Index  of  Great  Composers. 


Vernio,  Count,  37. 
Vogler,  Abt,  181,  205,  216. 

Wagner,  Wilhelm  Richard, 
121,  163,  169,  180,  204, 
205,  206,  220,  221-251, 
260,  262,  269,  280-281, 
291,  295,  297. 

Wallace,   William   Vincent, 

295- 
Walsegg,  Count  von,  92. 


Weber,  Carl  Maria  von,  94, 
181,   183,   199,   205,  214- 

22O,  221. 

Weber,  Godfrey,  200. 
Weelkes,  293. 
Widor,  210. 
Wilbye,  294. 
Willaert,  Adrian,  24-25. 

Zachau,  57. 
Zarlino,  25. 


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